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OUR 



Unseen Companions, 



BY 



SANCHO QUIXOTE- pWwcL «>?■ 



"Ceas to do evil : lerq to do well." 

" The more I think of it," says Ruskin, " I find this 
conclusion more imprest upon me — that the greatest 
thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see some- 
thing, and to tell what it saw in a plain way. " 



rt ' 



** 



1^ 



WILLIAM ARTHUR, -n I 



La i 



PUBLISHER, 

414 West Twenty-Eighth Street, New York. 



^ 






Copyright, 1896, 
by william arthur, 

All Rights Reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter. Page. 

The Amended Speling - - . .v. 

As the Day — a Poem ... x. 

Introduction - - - xi. 

I. Our Angels- - .... 15 

II. Making My Bow 18 

III. About the Occult World - 22 

IV. Worshipping Satan 29 
V. Trapping an Enthusiast - 33 

VI. Still Trapping ----- 41 

VII. The Gift of Tungs - - - - 45 

VIII. My Ears ar Opend 50 

IX. Hevenly Music from Angelic Hosts - 54 

X. The Very Gate of Heven - - - 60 

XI. Fiends and Hypnotism- - - - 67 

XII. The Mouth of the Pit 73 

XIII. The Trap is Sprung by Demons- - 79 

XIV. Inside a Lunatic Asylum - -88 

XV. Luv and Hate - 99 

XVI. Fiendish Persecution - - - 109 

XVII. Don't Mention It! - - - - 116 

XVIII. Hypnotism Means Torture - - 121 

XIX. The Demons and the Armenian Massacres 127 

XX. "Jesus Luver of My Soul!" - - 130 

XXI. Rejoicing as a Strong Man - - 134 

XXII. Demons Swear — Do You? - - - 140 

XXIII. An Evolutionary Future - - - 145 

XXIV. What Think Ye of Christ? - - 160 
XXV. Stray Notes - 162 

XXVI. American Civilization - - - 223 
XXVII. An Angel Asks Me, "What do Christians 

Mean?" 242 

XXVII. The Time Spirit and au Revoir - - 250 

To the Reeder ----- 265 



THE AMENDED SPELING. 



IF you want anything done, do it. "Youar like others; 
you dream about things and talk about them, but 
you don't do them." That was what an angel said to me 
one day. 

When I lernt shorthand some eighteen years ago I be- 
came an advocate of f onetic speling and expected with the 
enthusiasm of youth that the new system would win its 
way in a few years, and that the barbarous, mossback 
English which has tortured so many millions of unfortun- 
ates would soon be thrown into the wastebasket to be 
grubbed up only by antiquarians. But the sluggards and 
the traditionalists still survive to witch the world with 
strange orthografy. 

The thanks of all English speaking peopl ar due to Sir 
Isaac Pitman for the splendid work he has done for spel- 
ing reform. I do not like some of the characters he uses, 
but when the legislators of English speaking countries 
make up their minds that it is time to hav a new and 
better language we can easily find suitabl characters to re- 
present the different sounds. 

I believ English will be the universal language. I 
hav examined Yolapuk to some extent, and I do not think 
it will ever be generally used. In addition to our other 
troubls, we ar afflicted with mossback, purblind legislators 
who do not seem to understand what a fonetic language 
would mean even from the sacred point of view of making 
money. Our present system is wasteful in the extreme, 



VI. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

even for home use, while a fonetic system would in a singl 
decade, in addition to setting us right at home, effect a 
marvelous change in our foreign relations and help to fill 
our gaping pockets. 

The etymological difficulties ar more imaginary than 
real. When I lernt to read Spanish I had no troubl what- 
ever in understanding that "filosofo" ment philosopher, 
and surely the lerned men should be the last to say that 
simpl changes of that sort will confuse them. They ar 
not aware of the extent of their own abilities. But even 
if the origin of the word were obscured there ar diction- 
aries enuf and to spare to help them out of their difficul- 
ties. And there is another consideration. Even if the 
origin were obscured ten times over we don't care. We 
ar getting defiant. We will soon become reckless. Is 
language for the use of a very, very few purists or is it 
for hundreds of millions of peopl? Ar children to be 
tortured from generation to generation to pleas a few 
of the professors, and all of the mossbacks? The best men 
ar on the side of the radicals. The very cream of the 
cream of the filologists ar with us, and we ar going to 
win, for Demos shall be king, yea Demos king. 

It should be an easy matter to make progress. There 
ar thousands of stenografers in the land and it is safe to 
say that they all favor a change. They practically con- 
duct all the business correspondence of the country, and 
"The House" would bow to their will if they went about 
the work diplomatically. 

The system used in this book might easily be adopted 
without any volcanic eruptions. It would be sufficient to 
put on the letter heds, "The system of speling used in 
our correspondence is that recommended by the Filological 
vSocieties of the United States and the United Kingdom." 
Then, in the current language "The House" would be 
at the hed of the procession. 

The newspapers ar never tired shrieking about what 



THE AMENDED SPELING. Vll. 

they do to bring about a higher civilization, but they seem 
to steer clear of this reform. There is a limp in their pro- 
gressiv gait when it comes to fonetic speling, yet most of 
them acknowledge that it is necessary. Why don't they 
adopt it? 

If our statesmen had adopted a system of fonetic 
speling a quarter of a century ago, all linotypes and type- 
writers would hav been made with the new characters ; 
but they were busy with "practical" work and laft at the 
dreamers. It sometimes turns out tho that the dreamers 
ar the practical men in the long run. 

I had my book alredy typewritn and I said to myself, 
\ ' Why not use the amended speling ? Why not do it in- 
sted of talking about it?" And I took up my pen and 
began to make corrections. It cost me some hard work, 
but I think the result will justify it. We hav a good deal 
of influence upon one another. A singl thotless remark 
of a companion set me to lern Spanish. From Spanish I 
went to French and formed acquaintances, and listened 
to speeches that I would never hav done but for that one 
remark that Spanish was an easy language. So I hav 
amended the speling becaus I know that some of my 
readers will mend their manners, and make their fortunes 
by adopting this reform thru having red " Our Unseen 
Companions." 

I hav undoubtedly mist many words, and again I hav 
drawn my pen thru some that should hav been left un- 
toucht on the principl that if you giv a man an inch 
he will take an el. I believ in an absolutely fonetic 
English, but it is best to take what we can get at present, 
and be thankful. 

If the speling you see here looks strange, it is simply 
becaus the eye is not accustomed to it. I like Pitman's 
speling better in one respect. " Posibel "looks better, ac- 
cording to my view, than "possibl," " trifel" than "trifl. " 
I like a language with plenty of vowels. Spanish, for ex- 



Vlll. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

ampl, has a musical look about it, if I may employ a figure 
that will make the heathen rage; but the authorities can 
settl these disputed questions when the great fight comes, 
for as yet we hav only been skirmishing. 

I was half inclined to adopt a new character for the long 
"e " in such words as " believ " and " receiv," but con- 
cluded not to go too far and offend the Filistines, for they 
ar as shy as littl fawns. It is best to do as much as possibl 
with the familiar characters at this stage and very much 
can be done with them if you, the reader of this book, 
will act, act in the living present. I hav more faith than 
ever in what we can do if we only put our shoulders 
to the wheel at once and not wait until to-morrow, 
when we may hav joined the angels who can communi- 
cate with one another without any language. 

It would weary you to tell of the schemes I hav thot of 
to bring about a fonetic English. By the time you finish 
this book you may understand matters. No, no ; that was 
not the dominating idea ; only one among others. Per- 
haps I may hav some good ideas. Perhaps not. You will 
not be troubld with them, at all events, until the proper 
time. In the mean time I sleep very well indeed, thank 
you, and eat a good-sized dinner. 

The thanks of speling reformers ar due also to Funk & 
Wagnalls, Publishers, New York. They issued a circular 
some months ago with a list of more than twelv hundred 
words in the amended speling. The understanding was 
that as soon as they got three hundred signatures of edit- 
ors, authors, prominent teachers, prominent business 
men who would agree to adopt the list they would use it 
in their periodicals. Two hundred and nine persons sent 
their signatures at once and it is believd that the re- 
quired number will soon be in and the conditions ful- 
fill 

While I hav always been much interested in the subject 
it is not likely that this book would hav been printed as it 



THE AMENDED SPELING. IX. 

is had the list not been sent out. The speling does not go 
far enuf to suit a radical, but it is a nearer approach to 
common sens than that which is in most of the books mine 
will rub covers with on the bookshelvs. 

I hav introduced a littl word into the language to irri- 
tate the professors. If you don't like it, invent one your- 
self, and out of the host w T e shall be abl to select the right 
one. What is it ? Read on, read on ! It is not plethys- 
mograf, at all events. 

If you ar interested in the subject, as all men and 
women of progressiv ideas should be, you can get further 
information from the circular by writing to Messrs. Funk 
& W agnails, 30 Lafayette Place, New York. Forget to 
enclose a stamp, as usual, and the reply will likely come 
the quicker : let brotherly luv continue. 

"You think about things, you dream about them, but 
you ar like the others — you don't do them," said an angel 
to me. How much longer ar we going to lay ourselves 
open to this charge ? 



"AS THY DAY." 



At his my day ! O promis blest ! 
Sweet words of comfort, words of rest 1 
No more with boding- fear 1 wait 
To read to-morrow's hidden fate. 
Whate'er its toils, whate'er its tears, 
Whate'er its perils, pains or fears. 
While sun and stars and worlds endure. 
The old sweet promis standeth sure! 

The hand that holds the world upbears 
My weary hart with all its cares ; 
The eye that slumbers not hath seen 
My graveyard mound with grasses green. 
My Father's pitying luv has red 
The pain behind the tears I shed. 
How comforting his words to me— 
4 Child, as thy day thy strength shall be." 

Long, long ago when life was new, 
I lernt that luv, divinely true, 
That watchful care that cares for all : 
The stars' grand march, the sparrows falL 
Long, long ago, I lernt to trust 
That calm wise will and purpose just. 
Worn, weary, wounded, now at length* 
I lean upon that matchless strength. 

Ab this my day — my little day ! 
My broken, troubld, thwarted day, 
The day whose roseate morning bloom 
Was quencht and darkened into gloom. 
The morn of gifts! the noon of loss ! 
The lengthening shadow of the cross ! 
Once more, my Father, say to me ; 
14 Child, as thy day thy strength shal 1 be " 



Mrs. Mary H. Finn. 



INTRODUCTION. 



*'« And many of them said, * He hath a devil. Why hear ye him?' Others 
said, * These are not the words of him that hath a devil.' "-John x., 20, 21. 

" Write on your doors the saying wise and old, 
* Be bold ! be bold !' and everywhere ' Be bold;' 
4 Be not too bold !' Yet better the excess 
Than the defect. Better the more than less ; 
Better like Hector in the field to die, 
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly."— Longfellow. 

IT is literature of one kind and another that plays the 
mischief with ns all. Down in La Mancha in the 
olden time the knight red and re-red his books of chival- 
ry so often thru the day, and dremt so much at night — 
eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open — of the golden 
days of the past and the golden days to come when he 
should lay his lance in rest and clear Spain of marauders, 
lhat he lost taste for the quiet pursuits which had formerly 
charmed him, and found no peace unto his soul until he 
went forth a-fighting. And if his poor cousin Sancho 
Quixote, master builder of castles in the same country 
spent the best part of a year in an insane asylum in these 
latter days gathering wisdom that he might easily hav 
found elswhere in a much plesanter manner, and if he 
past thru the horribl experiences narrated in this new 
book of chivalry and fool-hardy daring he owes it from 
beginning to end to bad ideas, bad literature and worse 
judgment. 

It took a long time of preparation ; the evidences were 
carefully weighed again and again, for it was a risky ven- 
ture ; but bad mistakes were made in the premises and 
Sancho suffered. 

The average man or woman has very littl idea of the 



XII. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

influence that one mind has upon another. Ideas rule the 

world. A good book lifts us up ; an evil one pulls us 

down. The effect of both lasts for ever. 

* * * * * 

k ' Tho' losses and crosses 
Be lessons right severe, 
There's wit there, you'll get there. 
You'll find no other where." 

Upon a certain day, a few } T ears ago, a millionaire was 
sitting in his office in the city of New York. He was one 
of the rulers of our modern world with all the power but 
without the trappings that his barbaric brothers of old 
used to throw around themselves. He was expecting a 
very important message, and had told his chief clerk to 
see to it that there was no ceremony wasted when his 
trusted agent appeard. Just before the time for closing 
the office the door opend and a sharp-looking man 
walkt in. "Well?" said the millionaire interrogativly. 
"The deal is closed, " was the smiling reply, "and the 
papers ar all signed." " Allow me to congratulate you," 
said Midas, for this was his name. "Your share will 
make you rich. " The fight was over, the millionaire 
was successful; he had acquired more power, and the 
two men went out the office together smiling and satis- 
fied. Midas had not so much aslookt at the clothes or the 
muddy shoes of his agent. 

Moral number one. — Muddy shoes don't count, if the 
man who wears them brings good tidings. * * * * * 

You, who ar by no means a millionaire, much to your 
sorrow doubtless, but just an ordinary mortal selling 
sugar, or hides, or lumber, ar sitting like your rich frend 
waiting for good news. The messenger boy taps at your 
door and brings you in a telegram. You open it, read 
the contents, and you say, " Ha, ha, the game is mine : 
things ar coming my way at last." The boy is gone and 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll. ; 

you hav never so much as lookt at the shape of his cap. 
Moral number two: — Caps don't count if the boy who 
wears them carries a plesant message. 

A short time after the Batl of Flodden a weary knight 

rode up the streets of Edinburgh, surrounded by anxious 

citizens. 

" Nowc of batl 8 News of batl ! 
Hark ! 'Tis ringing down the street % 
And the archways and the pavement 
Bear the olang of hurrying foot. 05 

" How has the day gone, Randolff Murray ? Why hav 
you left our sons and fathers ? Where ar they ?" But 
the old man rode on to meet the fathers of the city. He 
brot them news of fierce batl against the Southern, of 
great loss, of the wreck of their hopes. 

The wise old men had shaken their heds when their sons 
had shouted for war with their ancient enemy to the 
south, but the yung bloods led the way and would not 
be gainsaid. The result was disaster. The old knight 
had escaped after he had fot a good fight, but it was a sad 
story he brot to the waiting burgers. 

Moral number three : — They believd this message, be- 
caus they knew him and trusted him. 

Moral number four: — It would hav been far better if 
the yung bloods had listened to the counsel of those 
who implored them to let well enuf alone and to 
profit by the experience of their grandfathers. 

Moral number five : — We would all be better littl men 
and women if we would remember what happened to 
the fools of old who engaged in batls that should never 
hav been fot. 

^c H* * * 4s 

" My dear yung lady, " said an old gentlman in a pom- 
pous way to his ward who was enjoying herself in a man- 
ner that did not accord with his ideas of propriety, " I am 
an old man now ; I hav seen a great deal of the world. " 



XIV. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

44 I beg your pardon, sir," she said interrupting him, for 
she knew what was coming. " But I wish to see it, too." 
Moral number six : — If the rising generation would only — - 
etc. But we insist on biting the appl for ourselvs, and 
we hav to spit out the ashes in the same way as our re- 
spected forefathers did. 

^ ^ * jh * 

" How is the batl going ?" was the question askt one 
day when Napoleon was turning things upside down. ' ' The 
batl is lost, but it is only four o'clock, and there is time to 
gain another. " was the reply. 

Moral number seven, and last and best for both reader 
and writer of the following experiences: — We can win 
all our batls in the future no matter what blunders we 
hav made in the past if we will only accept the general- 
ship of One who will lead us to a victory that will grow 
brighter and brighter as the days go by. 

^ :Jc ^c %. ^ 

Let it be said at the outset, and remembered to the end, 
that there ar many, very many Christian Spiritualists. I 
think they ar making a serious mistake, but it may be 
said with respect to them, and also with respect to many 
who ar not Christians, that not a few of our nominal 
Christians who ar strictly orthodox in their views might 
easily lern something from some of the Spiritualists. They 
ar trying hard amid difficulties that we all feel to luv 
their neighbor as themselves and they ar succeeding 
fairly well. A pity that we don't all do as well as some 
of them ar doing. 

There ar said to be several millions of Spiritualists in the 
world now. A belief that is held by so many of our fel- 
low beings is worthy of being fot for if it is right, and 
worthy of being opposed if it is wrong. The truth will 
conquer in the end, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. And now hands to the work. 



CHAPTER I. 

BY PERMISSION FROM THE NEW YORK HERALD OF NOVEMBER 

24TH, 1895. 

Our Angels. 
Angels Came and Ministered Unto Him. — Matt, iv., xL 

It is a glad surprise to the careful student of the older 
and the newer Scriptures that the beings whom we call 
angels occupy so prominent a position in the Father's 
dealings with His children on the erth. And it is not the 
least curious fact in the history of our modern religious 
life that the mission of these angels should be either ig- 
nored or practically discredited. We hav not been willing" 
to admit that God uses any secondary agencies in the ac- 
complishment of his purposes. Asa consequence, we suf- 
fer spiritual loss, for there is great comfort to be had in, 
the belief that a throng of invisibl beings ar nigh at hand 
in our time of troubl, pitying us in our distress and lend- 
ing such aid as lies in their power. How many of our* 
burdens ar lightened by their succoring strength, how 
frequently we ar enabled to resist temptation by their 
power [added to our own, how often holy suggestions, 
come from them which we attribute to our own minds and 
harts, no one can tell. But that they do come from 
heven to erth, and that our daily lives ar blest by their 
presence, no one who accepts the record of Christ's minis- 
try as veritabl history can possibly doubt. 

Their doings run thru the pages of the Old Testament 
like a golden thred in a costly fabric. The dark places in the 
life of the ancient Hebrews ar illumined by them, and 
every prof et held communion with them and receivd fromi 
them the mandates of the Most High. Daniel, when 
speaking of the straight he was in, said: "Behold, there 



1 6 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

stood before me as the appearance of a man. . . . And 
he informed me and talkt with me. " And his experience is 
so multiplied by others of a like nature that we ar almost 
startld by their constant recurrence. They shine like 
stars on a winter night; and to them the Hebrews were 
indeted for their courage and their national glory 

The birth of Christ was announct by an angel ; the 
flight into Egypt with the Child was commanded by an 
angel ; when the temptation of Christ was ended He was 
ministered unto by angels; when the tearful women 
stood at the tomb it was an angel " whose raiment was 
white as snow," who proclaimed the resurrection. And 
when the mob followed the Lord and the discipls talkt 
of resistance by force, He rebukt them, declaring that if 
needful He could call on "more than twelv legions of 
angels." 

I adduce only a few out of many instances, but they ar 
sufficient to establish and emphasize the fact that we ar 
seen tho we do not see, and that heven holds the erth in 
its arms as a mother her babe. No distance forms a bar- 
rier either to our longing or to their respons to it. We 
may not feel the hand that is placed in ours, but it is 
there; we do not hear with the hearing of the ear, but 
with the hearing of the hart ; we do not see these guardian 
spirits with the eye, but with our inner consciousness we 
ar sure that they ar close by. What a glorious relm of 
thot we ar exploring! What a glorious relm of fact is 
revealed to us ! The poor soul that is being driven along 
the downward path by the fury of his passions is accom- 
panied at every step by God's messengers — the messen- 
gers of his pity and his luv — and with their supremest 
efforts they try to bar his way to further wretchedness. 
The lonely hart that has been chilldby frosty misfortune, 
and falls upon a desperate mood that regards even crime 
with indifference, is surrounded by invisibl agents who ar 
doing all that heven itself can suggest to make the way 



OUR ANGELS. I J 

smoother and the sky brighter. And the mourning soul 
sitting in the shadow of a great bereavment, looking up- 
ward with tear-dimd eyes — is no one near to whisper con- 
solation? Is God unmindful or powerless to assuage this 
grief? The angels who represent God's sympathy ar in 
that darkened room, and the peace that comes to the 
broken hart comes from abuv. 

We hav here a practical fact, but we hav made too littl 
use of it. The wonder is that we hav neglected it so 
long, for it is one of the most precious truths to be found 
within the whole range of God's providence. Not alone, 
never alone, but always in the companionship of minis- 
tering spirits enjoined by the Father to do us good ser- 
vice if we will allow them to do so. 

And who ar these hevenly beings? Why not those who 
hav been bound to us for many years and who luv us now 
more than ever? Shall they who hav been so dear, but 
who were summoned to the other land, be sent far away 
while strangers do His bidding for our behoof? Our 
guardians ar those who hav been closest to our harts, I 
believ, and they ar always redy to come at our call. They 
hover about us, guide our wandering footsteps, avert im- 
pending danger, do what they may to encourage and 
cheer, and after the nightfall, when the morning comes, 
they will be the first to greet us and welcome us to that 
home where partings shall be forever unknown. 

George H. Hepworth. 

That sermon of the Rev. Dr. Hepworth is one of the 
best and most practical I hav ever red. I say most prac- 
tical, and I am a fairly good judge as you will perhaps 
acknowledge before you finish this book. The oftener 
you read it, the better you see it to be. Every word of 
it is true with the possibl exception of the first part of 
the last paragraf. It is worth your while to read it over 
again, for it is a beutiful sermon full of glorious ideas 
that I know to be true. I know to be true, for as I used 



1 8 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

to read it demons were cursing around me, but langes 
were there to cheer and encourage me to the end of a 
light that was waged inch by inch with a savage intensity 
of ernestness and hatred that astonisht, and during the 
erlier stages appald me. 



CHAPTER II. 
Making My Bow. 

There ar a great many strange doctrins in the world we 
liv in, but strange indeed must be the one that does not 
hav an ernest body of supporters. 

There ar men who hav a firm belief in the virtues of 
protection, and there ar others who pin their faith to free 
trade. Gold, says one man, is the only proper medium 
for a currency, and his neighbor across 1 the street shrieks 
for paper and confidence and is redy to march to tha 
stake in support of his theory if necessary. We hav 
Whigs and Tories disguised under modern names, Re- 
publicans and Democrats, Shakers and anti- Shakers, 
Women Suffragists and those who become furious at the 
mention of the subject, and we hav ernest men and wom- 
en who believ in miracls and others equally ernest who re- 
fuse to bow the knee. In short — for we might easily pro- 
long the discussion until your patience was exhausted — • 
whenever there is a question of any kind broacht you find 
that thru a conception of some law on the one side, and a 
want of faculty to understand that law on the other men 
and women instantly take sides and begin to fight. They 
hav been fighting for thousands of years over some of the 
questions that agitate the human race, and they do not 
seem to be much nearer a settlment than when they be- 



MAKING YM BOW. 19 

gan. Man, with all his faults, is a patient kind of a being, 
and insted of looking for fruit from past effort, as he cer- 
tainly should in these evolutionary days, he trots around 
the circl as his fathers did and tries to keep happy. Much 
to my surprise I hav been f orct to change sides on one of 
these subjects as old as the hills, and I want to take you 
into my confidence and tell you all about it. 

But for the fact that I think my experience will do some- 
thing to keep others in the narrow path this book would 
never have been writn. The best thing to do as a rule 
when you hav been foolish is just to take your punish- 
ment and say as littl as possibl — just to take your medi- 
cin, as the vernacular has it, and make up your mind to 
do better in the future, and, now that the sun is shining 
as brightly as ever, this is what I would do if I did not 
know that hundreds ar being trapt into the same belief as 
I was altho few go so far. 

First of all then, largely owing to my reading on the 
subject in the newspapers and reviews, and principally, I 
think, in the proceedings of the American and English 
Psychical societies, I hav believd for the last seven or 
eight years that we ar, as the reverend Mr. Hepworth 
says in his admirabl sermon, surrounded by angels who 
ar trying to raise us up and help us. Previous to that 
time I did not think much about the matter, but took it 
all for granted. I now regret to say that I am in a posi- 
tion to giv the other side of the story and to state from 
my practical experience of many months that we ar also 
surrounded by fallen angels, you might call them, or de- 
mons or fiends as they ar sometimes called. 

Now, here is just where our troubls begin. There ar 
men who believ that angels of both kinds surround us in 
our daily lives, and they ar so sure about it that nothing 
will convince them that it is not true, but there ar also ir- 
ritating men and women who look rather superior and 
smile in a patronizing way when the fact is mentioned 



2 o OUR UNS E E N C O M P A NION S. 

and whisper in an aside to their neighbors that so and so 
has lost what littl brains he ever had. It is worth while 
to stop here long enuf to say that the plain teaching of 
the Bible is with the believers, but it counts for so littl 
with many who are church members that it might, so far 
as they are concerned, be left out of the question. It is a 
pity when men within the camp are fighting the batls of 
the enemy. 

Here, then, is where the fight begins. On the one side 
we hav those who accept the New Testament doctrin of 
demoniac possession, and on the other we hav those who 
profess their belief in it when they join a christian church 
but who smile at the idea. Those outside the fold who 
scout at such a thing ar, at least, not playing hypocrit. 

The unfortunates who know something about posses- 
sion, and hear voices from our unseen companions ar as- 
sured by the materialists that these voices ar imaginary 
and come only thru a derangement of the nervous system. 
The doctors ar partly right — they do come thru a derange- 
ment of the nervs, but they ar real. To hold this belief 
and to maintain it in the face of the experts, as other un- 
fortunates maintain their delusions is to convict one's self 
of being insane. When hallucinations become so persist- 
ently imprest on the mind, says a good authority, as to 
induce absolute belief in their reality as facts, and the 
subject acts in conformity with such belief, his mental 
condition comes within the scope of delusion, which is legal 
unsoundness of mind. These be brave words, but I never 
set much store by that view when I studied the subject 
from a theoretical standpoint, and I set less than ever now 
that I hav added reality to theory. 

The doctors work from the outside. An ounce of fact 
is worth a pound of theory. 

"Write your experience," the voices I herd told me 
time and again, "and perhaps others will tell of theirs and 
men and women will come to understand that the old idea 



MAKING MY BOW. 21 

of possession is right." I herd these voices ringing in 
my ears all day and every minute of the night that I 
was awake. If they were imaginary then so ar the voices 
you hear for the sound is the same. 

While I was under the torture there w T as but littl relief 
except when our good angels spoke to me. It was a cold 
blooded, merciless persecution, and had it not been for the 
frendly voices bearing me up and encouraging me thru 
the horrors I could never hav come out of it. 

Knowing the theory of the doctors as I did, I tried hard 
to believ in the face of all my previous reading that the 
voices were imaginary, and even when listening against 
my will to their lafter at the medical authorities, to their 
jeering and their cursing, I stoutly maintained that I was 
mistaken and that the lerned men were right, but I had 
to give it up after a time and get back to common sens. 
The only way I could revenge myself was by remember- 
ing that the physicians of Austria had tried to prevent the 
running of railway trains erly in the century on the theory 
that they would cut off the breth of the passengers owing 
to the rapid motion and land them at the wrong destin- 
ation. I remembered, too, that they had denied the circula- 
tion of the blood, half boiled men for fevers and other- 
wise made such terribl fools of themselves that the wiser 
among them now ar modest enuf to declare that medi- 
cin does not possess half the virtues that the ancient quacks 
used to attribute to it. This is what a good many of us 
hav been suspecting for a long while, but we were half 
afraid to speak before the college bred men gave the nod. 

It would fill a book to tell of their lerned nonsens, and 
firmly believing th'at they hav something to lern on the 
subject of insanity, I intend, humbly enuf, to set forth my 
views, to give my reasons for believing that voices ar real, 
that Mahomet and Joan of Arc, to quot two well known 
exampls, herd them, that thousands of men and women 
hear them to-day, many of them to their sorrow, that 



2 2 OUK UNSEEN COMPANION-. 

many hav escaped by the skin of the teeth, and that every 
one who has not herd them as much as I did should fall 
on his knees and thank God no matter what his surround- 
ings ar. 

For those who cling to the gospel and the old theory of 
possession my story may be interesting and profitabl; for 
those who cannot believ in any other than the orthodox 
theory it will be as the story of a madman, and therefore 
interesting enuf in a mesure as a revelation of the work- 
ings of the human brain under abnormal conditions. 



CHAPTER III. 

About the Occult World. 

Macaulay in describing the Puritans says: "They 
were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character 
from the daily contemplation of superior beings and 
eternal interests. The difference between the greatest 
and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when com- 
pared with the boundless interval which separated the 
hole race from Him on whom their eyes were constantly 
fixt. The very meanest of them was a being to whose 
fate a mysterious and terribl importance belonged — on 
whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness 
lookt with anxious interest. He was half maddened by 
glorious or terribl illusions. He herd the lyres of angels 
or the tempting whispers of fiends. " 

That is what the Puritans thot about it, and before I 
had studied the occult world I often smiled on the sly at 
our grim friends and their beliefs. But they were rather 
a strong kind of men too. Bishop Spalding says well, — 



ABOUT THE OCCULT WORLD. 2$ 

16 I look around me and I do not know where to find their 
match to-day." For a good many years I hav believd 
like them that we ar encompast round about with angels, 
but somehow or other I made the almost fatal mistake of 
thinking that mine were all drest in white. I forgot al- 
together about the black batallions, and they ar very in- 
dustrious and very much in ernest. In our modern frase 
they mean business, and they work with a passionate de- 
sire to drag us down to their level, and make our lives a 
burden almost too hevy to bear. 

I ask myself often, What is the use of saying anything 
about it? The torture is over, and others ar more inclined 
to laf or joke over what is a dedly serious matter than to 
keep away from it themselves and do their best to help 
their neighbors from falling into the pit. I need never 
have past thru the depths, for there was evidence enuf in 
the world, outside of the Bible altogether, for even a fool. 
But we hav become so devout in our worship of ''science" 
that we must hav evidence for ourselves — we will not be- 
liev unless we see the nail prints and put our hand in His 
side. We will not belie v Moses and the profets, and 
neither will we believ even if one should rise from the 
ded. This saying has a new meaning for me now-a-days. 

In these days when so many ar telling us wonderful 
stories of the occult world and the glories therof, it may 
be worth while for me to lift up my voice like one crying 
in the wilderness and tell what I found. We ar all will- 
ing to listen to the story of the man who succeeds, but it 
is well when occasion servs to lend an ear to him who 
fails. The knights of old fot many a hard batl, and it 
must hav been rather plesant for the victors to ride around 
the lists amid the plaudits of the spectators, but some- 
where there were other knights who had bit the dust and 
broken harts by their failures, and to-day when we ar 
fighting on other batl grounds some of the gallant gentl- 
meri bear off the colors, and we clap our hands and make 



24 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

merry and forget all about the muddl heeled creatures 
who have fallen by the wayside of remember them only 
to speak of their folly, and to hug* ourselves as we think 
that we ar not as they were. 

The successful occultists ar like the doctors — they ar 
wedded to idols, so that I am between two contending 
hosts neither of them over wise. I shall tell the success- 
ful explorers of the occult of my journey into the hidden 
relm and its direful consequences. As the motto on the 
book cover says, I went out for wool and came back 
shorn. Surely the men who ar teling us of their triumfs 
can hav patience enuf to listen to the story of one failure, 
or if they told the whole truth would some of them not 
hav to say too, as I hav, that we should be content to 
leave things as God has fixt them? They ar, according 
to my views, in a very bad business, but we ar free-will 
agents on this erth and I hav to deal only with my own 
folly. 

It came about in this way. I had red of gosts flying 
everywhere, tabl tapping and tipping, wonderful mes- 
sages thru clairaudience, uncanny sights thru clairvoyance, 
telepathy, seances and all the various ways in which our 
unseen companions make known their presence to us. I 
had been especially charmed with the statement that all 
that was necessary to turn a clown into a fllosof er was 
simply to connect him with the hidden relm, get him to 
concentrate his thots, and nature herself would attend to 
the rest by turning on the current and pouring whatever 
knowledge he needed on his brain. This, I say, charmed 
me, and lookt rather reasonabl to one who believd in evo- 
lution. Just to keep the clever, practical reader from 
smiling, I might as well say before I go further that I 
found the statement to be true, but I found something 
connected with the process that I did not quite expect. I 
still retain my old beliefs with respect to a good many of 
the truths I had imbibed, but I now believ that the hole 



ABOUT THE OCCULT WORLD. 25 

of the occult craze that is sweeping over the erth comes 
from Satan and belongs to him. I believ furthermore 
that those who attend seances and carry on their investiga- 
tions thru mediums ar doing their best to. further the pro- 
gress of his kingdom. Of late years I had doubted 
whether there was such a being, but I am now in the 
habit of painting him as black as possibl. 

Singularly enuf, altho deeply interested in spiritism, as 
I now call it, I had never been at a seance. I had seen 
only two mesmeric exhibitions during my life. The first 
I attended as a schoolboy, the last as a fool among other 
fools. I had attended only three meetings of Spiritists, 
more out of curiosity than anything els, for I did not 
believ much was to be lernt among them even while hold- 
ing to many of their theories. At one of these meetings 
I remember smiling as I herd the medium say that the 
spirit of Mary Jane was in the audience anxious to com- 
municate with her unci Richard Roe. Was he present? 
Of cours, I did not doubt that the medium herd the voice, 
but it was one thing to read of it and another to be in the 
hall where it was going on. The medium lookt at me 
and said, "I w r ant no more of that smiling. This is a 
serious matter." I found afterwards when in the toils 
listening to the irritating question, ' ' Do you now believ 
that it is a serious matter, Sancho Quixote? Well, they 
all get a warning before they enter the occult and you 
got yours," that it was indeed a serious enuf matter for me. 
There is a good deal of fraud in connection with spiritism, 
but many good peopl do not understand that there is a 
good deal of truth too. Satan directs the machinery, 
and he likes a good basis for his work. Sometimes he 
tells the truth for a purpose. For a few years previous to 
my troubl I had ceast to believ in the divinity of Christ, 
and lookt upon the various occult beliefs as a part of the 
evolutionary struggl that was to lead us to Mount Olym- 
pus. It is comparativly easy for those who do not read. or 



26 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

even think of the strange beliefs, the strange revelations 
of science that ar pouring in upon us from all quarters 
to retain an unwavering faith in the New Testament, but 
a man does not need to be a professor to doubt many 
things once firmly belie vd. I glided into the new 
faith almost insensibly, but many a man and many a 
woman has suffered agonies for years over the great ques- 
tion. 

Is Darwin right or is he wrong? Is he right so far as 
the vegetabl and animal kingdoms ar concerned and 
wrong as to man? Was there a fall or has there been a 
stedy ascent? Ar the Darwinians of to-day right or ar 
they wrong? There is good and evil in each of us. Prog- 
ress seems to<be the law of life around us; why should 
it not be continued after we hav past behind the veil, in- 
sted of a change being wrot which will turn us into sin- 
less beings as the angels ar? Does nature make such sud- 
den jumps? Does it seem likely that the w r orst man, we 
shall suppose, who has ever disgraced the erth should be 
made an angel if he believs in Christ, while his neighbor 
who has done his duty according to his lights should be 
sent to hell for ever because he cannot see his way to ac- 
cept the orthodox belief? Is it in accordance with law of 
growth? and so on, and so on. The easiest way to liv, 
perhaps, is to go thro the world ostrich fashion, but many 
ar so constituted that they cannot do so. Only very un- 
charitabl people say that it is with all a question of pride of 
intellect. The worst critics ar those who do not know 
anything at all about the reasonablness of the scientific 
creed. I think now that it is a wretched mistake, so tar 
as it refuses to accept Christ, but I can sympathize with 
those who believ in it and understand their position. 

When I came back to the old belief I did not hav to 
contend with the question of miracls. Whatever harm 
may hav been done thru occult studies they hav at least 
led many to understand that there ar so many strange 



ABOUT THE OCCULT WORLD. . 2 J 

forces around us that a miracl to us is a very simpl matter 
indeed to those behind the scenes. 

I hav no doubt that Aaron's rod was turned into a ser- 
pent to swallow up its wriggling companions, for it is 
whispered around among the adepts that Satan is still en- 
gaged in the same business, and that the magicians of old 
hav their descendants to-day. 

We know very littl of the hidden world, but one thing 
we do know is that, in spite of the theory of the universal- 
ity of law never to be interfered with, God rules supe- 
rior to any laws He has seen fit to reveal to us, and "in- 
terferes" with them ofener than some of us imagin. 
Christ and His apostls performed miracls, and so did many 
of the erly Christians, and so too, I believ, in spite of the 
cheap talk about the chapel and the grotto do his mess- 
engers to-day. Messengers, you will observ. 

We ar gifted with reason and we ar expected to use it, 
and it is plesant and desirabl to know how God creates his 
worlds, but the way in which they ar created does not after 
all so seriously affect our conception of Him as might 
be supposed. Whether is it greater to make a world in six 
days or in a million years? 

After the long debate we ar assured that there is not a 
singl particl of evidence to show that man follows at the 
end of the chain. Very well then, let the scientists keep on 
with their work and let those of us who hew wood and 
draw water keep an easy mind — if we can. 

I am glad to-day that I can cling to the old belief, but 
I have had some experiences that would make any one 
ponder over his future destiny. I wish that some of our 
scientific frends would turn from their barren doctrin of 
struggl for life and wild beast logic that I could never ac- 
cept and read over the New Testament, for to many of 
them it has become a forgotten book. 

I hav always been astonisht whenever I have red or 
herd of a man who denied that there was a God. This, of 



28 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

all doctrins, is the sheerest kind of insanity that has eVer 
afflicted any one of our race. 

I believd that after deth onr life went on as here — the 
good o'r bad getting the upper hand just as we were in- 
clined, but I thot that ultimately, gradually and slowly it 
might be, we would all be led onward to God and good- 
ness and felicity forever. After the long evolutionary 
struggl there was to be nothing but ethereal sweetness — 
all other views were ruled out of court. God, I often said 
to myself, would never hav created beings for any other 
kind of a destiny. Punishment for ever ? Nonsens. 

I had been studying social questions closely for more than 
a decade, and I became more anxious every day to see 
something done to put an end to the swinishness of our 
modern feudalism. I wanted to see, and I want to see 
more than ever to-day, a social system in which there 
would be no possibility for one degenerate to acquire 
a hundred million dollars in a lifetime while his brother 
died of starvation. That sort of a system makes my blood 
boil. I do not look for the millenium, and it happens to 
be the case that I hav a far better idea of the terribl forces 
arrayed against humanity than our political economists, 
but I still think that we could turn this glorious world we 
hav receivd from God to rule, from the pig-pen it is to mil- 
lions of poor unfortunates to a paradise. Environment 
will do a good deal, but not quite everything, I am well 
aware. I sometimes think, tho, that we really could do a 
good deal, but if the rest of you still object, and the pro- 
fessors frown — As for some of our fashionabl ministers 
who ar keeping quiet and cultivating the f rend ship of some 
of the most selfish men — ! But I am getting off my text. 
I hav started to preach insted of telling you my story. 

I hav set down the abuv particulars to let you understand 
to some degree, what manner of man I am. "This so- 
cial question is a pretty hard one," I said to myself. 
" Could we not turn on the current from the occult, as it 
were, and perhaps — who knows?" • 



CHAPTER IV. 

YV ORSHIPPING bATAN. 

Fild then to the brim with these strangely quixotic 
ideas I, Sancho Quixote, went toliv with Mr. and Mrs. B. ; 
and one night the conversation turned on spiritism, and I 
spoke of tabl tipping among other things. " O, that is 
nothing," said Mrs. B. "We used to do that at home sev- 
eral years ago, and we gave it up becaus we thot it was 
child's play." I was rather surprised, for she had been 
living in a small village of perhaps two hundred inhabit- 
ants where, as the city men put it, they still sew the post- 
age stamps on the letters. "Is it the case that this study 
has penetrated everywhere?" I askt myself, "and that 
even the church members ar busy with it?" 

A few days afterwards I spoke of it again, for I was too 
much interested to let the chance slip without some prac- 
tical demonstration of what could be done, and I pro- 
posed that we should try the tabl to see if it would rise. 
(It is perhaps just as well to anticipate matters a littl 
here, for there ar still plenty of fools in the world, and 
say that tabl tipping means Satan worship. If you feel 
inclined to worship him, that is your own business. I 
throw out the hint in time to abstain from everything of 
the sort.) 

I had never seen anything of the kind done, but I 
was at that stage where I ment to see it, and it was with 
a curious feeling that I saw the tabl rise about a foot on 
one side and hammer again and again on the floor. There 
was no possibility of any mistake. There we were, three 
of us, with no possibl chance for fraud, and no interest 
one way or another. 

We hav all red of seances being broken up and a satis- 



30 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

factory natural explanation given of the hole affair. 
But here two of us had never seen a tabl move, and the 
only one who had, had been told that it was due to some 
action of the nervs and had not the least idea that there 
were spirits moving it. She had not tried to do anything \] 
for several years, but as soon as she began it rose. Mr. 
B. succeeded in raising it from the floor after some time — 
for we became so interested that' we kept up the experi- 
ments for several weeks— but I could not do anything 
with it without the help of the others. This rather hurt 
me. I did not like it. Was it right that I who had I 
studied occult fenomena, should not be abl to do what '; 
others who had never lookt over their shoulders for a 
gost did without any troubl? The gods when they want it 
to punish a man often giv him just what he wishes. 

We would take a tabl about two feet square, and it 
would rase from the floor and thump xlcvn till it made 
the windows rati. " We shall hav to stop this. " we some- 
times said, "or the neighbors will come into see what is 
the matter." The house stood alone, but the sound of the I 
blows was uncanny. We would sometimes take a large 
kitchen tabl to vary our amusement, and it rose as easily 
as the smaller one. It came down on the floor hard enuf to 
make the frame house echo, but if weaskt to hav it strike 
softly it toucht the floor like a fether. We got answers 
to all of our questions — suggested as I know now by evil r 
spirits — by the number of taps on the floor, and it became 
very interesting indeed. Chairs responded to the touch 
the same as the tabls, but alone I could not do anything. 
This was still rather provoking, for I knew that nature's 
storehouse was full of knowledge if I could only make the 
connection, and thus acquire what I wanted in a way that 
would put our best schoolmasters to shame. There is no 
occasion for smiling just here. A cours of reading pur- 
sued for a certain number of years will change your world. 
Perhaps the practical men don't understand it all. 



WORSHIPPING SATAN. 3 1 

Kow I know that I was blinded in the same way as mil- 
lions ar who strive for welth they can never enjoy, &nd 
torture their fellow beings to acquire it. One man is 
caught in this way, another in that. Dollars or ideals, and 
the devil pipes to all, and you dance to his music ofener 
than you imagin. 

There was something I could not at first understand, 
altho I suppose I had red enuf about it. We would ask 
Mrs. B. to begin alone, and she would fall nearly asleep 
and we would say: " Why don't you take more interest in 
these things. There is something grand behind all this, 
and yet you fall asleep when we ask you to do what we 
cannot do ourselves. " "I. cannot help it. I cannot keep 
my eyes open." ."That is always the way." I would re- 
ply, " Altho I hav told you all about the peopl who ar en- 
gaged in these investigations you won't try to help us. " 
I understood better afterwards where the sleep came 
from. 

But we had got something more interesting than play- 
ing with tabls. Shortly after we began I spoke of auto- 
matic writing and the strange experiences that so many 
had had with it, and we tried to get some messages from 
the occult world by this new route, and they soon came in 
rapid succession. At first they came thru Mrs. B. , but 
later on we found that her husband was the better medi- 
um. 

I tried hard to do some writing but failed here too. Why 
is it, I thot, that I am always left out in the cold? Do the 
spirits not luv me? They came to luv me better than I 
had ever expected after a short time. 

We receivd all sorts of messages in answer to all sorts 
of questions. How long were we to liv? Ar the lines we 
see on Mars canals? Ar we doing right in continuing this 
study? And so forth. We were alternately praised and 
reproved, but always encouraged to continue the study, 
and assured that we were making progress. Only once, 



32 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

later on, when we were becoming a littl uncertain about 
our cours, we got a short message to give up the hole busi- 
ness and turn our thots to something of more value. Mrs. 
B. gave it up and urged us to do so, but her husband, in 
spite of my warning that it was something to be entered 
upon in a reverent manner, if at all, thot it a good joke and 
kept up the writing. 

AVe began to think, however, that we were keeping 
company with evil spirits, and this put a different aspect 
upon our " amusement. " What kind of a spirit would you 
think gave me the following advice? "Stop writing that 
book you ar engaged with at present. You ar simply wast- 
ing your time. Leav that sort of nonsens to those who 
care for it. " The library shelves ar alredy overloaded ; of 
making many books there is no end ; and much study is 
a weariness to the flesh, but when did you ever succeed in 
getting a budding author who is writing a book that is to 
change the face of civilization to belie v that he was labor- 
ing in vain? In these days when crops of literary men ar 
hanging half -ripe on every tree Solomon's doctrin is at a 
discount. I put it to any of them, — Was it a good or a 
bad spirit? A lady or a tiger? What would you do in a 
like case if you felt certain that the knowledge you were 
going to lay before your fellow mortals might hav a cer- 
tain effect upon the cours of the stars? You would do as I 
did. "I will continue," I said to myself, "I think the 
book will do good, and spirits or no spirits I will follow my 
own cours." 

During all these weeks we had a good deal of company 
in the hous. Chairs rockt thru the night, and moaning 
was herd, and the tapping on the walls, as distinct as any- 
thing could be, went on regulary. 

One night when Mr. B. and I were alone he began writ- 
ing and much to our astonishment he got a very offensiv 
message about a matter of which he was completely ignor- 
ant. We lookt at one another in amazement for a while, 



TRAPPING AN ENTHUSIAST. 33 

and then we concluded to end it all there and then. It 
was the first time anything of the sort had come, and we 
understood then that those who go into such studies must 
take' their chances. 

We wanted to get rid of our unseen companions, but 
they did not leav us so redily. The tapping still went on, 
the chairs still rockt below me, and in various ways I was 
made aware that I was not alone. Then I came to under- 
stand that it was just about as well to be content with the 
seen world insted of groping after knowledge we were never 
ment to hav. 



CHAPTER V. 

Trapping an Enthusiast. 

We gave up the "study" of the occult after this and 
were very glad indeed that we had escaped with a hole 
skin. For about a coupl of weeks things moved along all 
right, with the exception of the annoyances that we ex- 
pected to get rid of in time. But one night I went to bed 
as usual and before I fell asleep I felt something move in 
the pillow below my hed. The windows had been open 
all day, and I suppose I thot that some uninvited gest 
had crawled in and gone to sleep before I disturbed Him. 
I was rather startld, and jumpt out of bed a littl hur- 
riedly just as any other filosofer would hav done. I 
plunged my arm in the pillow case and found nothing. 
"Shaw!" I said to myself, "That was a case of imagina- 
tion. When did any man in his senses ever hear of a 
harmless pillow behaving itself in any other than a 
proper and decorous way?" I went back to bed lafing at 
myself and put my hed down, and no sooner did I begin 



34 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

to feel comfortabl than! — This was just a littl more than 
I liked, and I took to the floor again, but I did not ex- 
amin the pillow this time, so I was making progress. I 
walkt around and reasoned over the matter and went 
back to bed unabl to account for it. Again it began, but 
this time I lay still and felt it slowly heaving below my 
cheek. 

Suddenly, like an inspiration as the novelists would say, 
and as I would say too, if I did not know by a long and 
bitter experience just how and from what source inspira- 
tions of that kind come, the whole thing flasht upon me. 
Why had I not seen it before ? Ah, yes! And so that is 
the meaning of it, is it? They were back to see me. 
They ar busy everywhere, and they ar at your side as you 
read this, believ it or not. 

I did not altogether like it, but such is human vanity 
that I felt rather flattered too. It is evident after all, 
then, that my longings ar to be satisfied? Table tipping 
is only for beginners. It is clear that I am on the way to 
something of greater importance. Very good. And I 
lay and thot over the matter seriously and felt as calm 
and pleased as a slumbering child. I did not quite real- 
ize then just how the thots ar sent thru our silly heds. 

Perhaps you might hav jumpt you think ; you could 
never hav endured it alone in the dark, but as I hav al- 
redy said continue a certain cours of reading for a cer- 
tain time and you become a new being. I knew of too 
many cases to be very much alarmed. I certainly did not 
believ that they were evil spirits, even after the message 
we had receivd. I was simply blinded just as those fool- 
ish men, our millionaires ar blinded to-day, and with a 
better excuse, I still think, for it was not in any self-seek- 
ing spirit that I began or continued, and that was lucky 
for me. 

After a short time the pillow stopt heaving, and it 
seemed that a current of air was pumpt into my ear. 



TRAPPING AN ENTHUSIAST. 35 

Another " inspiration" came. Now I understand — They 
ar going to make me clairaudient. Very good again. 

The puffing of air continued until I fell asleep fairly 
well pleased with the thot that I was on the right 
track. 

I thot it best to say nothing on the subject next morn- 
ning. I wanted to see a littl further into it before alarm- 
ing my frends. It might go away, it might continue — 
the world is his who has patience. 

I had been praying for light on the evils surrounding 
us — on the unendurabl starvation that is driving thous- 
ands in the gutter in all lands, and in this new continent 
the richest part of the erth where there is more than enuf 
for all of us, and — for vSatan works in queer ways — I said 
to myself, Can this be my answer? I am well aware that 
it provokes a smile on the part of many church members 
when they hear of any one really believing in answers to 
prayer, but we ar not all constituted alike. When all 
who profess to believ in Christ expect answers to prayer 
as many who do not believ in his divinity do — but here 
we run foul of the rocks again. 

But as the days went on and the puffing likewise, morn- 
ing, noon and night, I became a littl uncertain about it all. 
Am I on the right track or am I making a fool of myself ? 
Shall I go and get advice from some one or foot the 
path alone? It is unnecessary to tell of the long debates 
I had with myself. It is sufficient to say that as the work 
on my ears kept stedily on I saw that I was perhaps on a 
dangerous cours. Evil spirits will not approach me, Sa- 
tan thot for me. I am entering into this world in a rever- 
ential spirit and with the intention of doing good. There 
will be no. more danger for me than for others. 

I red all the articls on spiritism in a magazine I had at 
hand, and weighed both sides as well as I could, and con- 
cluded that I was doing what was right. Had not even 
Mr. Gladstone, a Christian, said that as far as he knew 



$0 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

there was no harm in investigating spiritualism? — for he 
like others uses the wrong term. Had not even an English 
bishop spoken favorably of a doctrin that was doing a 
great deal to bring many back to a belief in a future life? 
To cut the matter short, is there not enuf and ten times 
more than enuf, to one who does not accept the Bible 
for what it really is, to encourage him in going forward ? 
And if you believe in evolution on both sides of the grave 
what then? And who is the judge? Those who hav red 
the long* argument or those who hav not? And whether 
do you think it better to investigate for yourself or play 
the coward and get mediums to investigate for you? I say, 
play the coward, becaus I know that any man or woman 
can investigate if voo choose. 

What my opinion of those who do march forward is you 
can gess, but I would at least be manly enuf to do it for 
myself and not drag others down. 

I prayed ernestly for light, and at last the long debate 
ended, and I decided on the wrong cours, as far as human 
eye can see. 

I had been so busy writing for a coupl of months or 
more that I had forgotten to take any exercise, and when 
I began this investigation I was more in need of open air 
than of -'spiritism" but the scales were over my eyes. 
My frends thot that I was still busy with a book, while I 
was lying in bed in the long, hot summer days, sweting 
myself down till both weight and appetite left me. I did 
not pay much attention to such trifls then, for I was too 
much in ernest now that I had settld on my --duty, " and 
when spoken to on the subject put it aside or blamed the 
wether, and believd in what I was saying. No one eats 
in hot wether as in cold, ergo it is only natural that I 
should fast when the sun shines. I had never fasted vol- 
untarily, so that I can claim the merit of originality even 
here. But Satan does not care particularly whether you 
fast in the orthodox fashion and carry it to extremes, or 



TRAPPING AN ENTHUSIAST. 37 

take it in another way so that the end is attained. Folly? 
Certainly. Clear evidence of incipient insanity? Well, I 
feel like the fox who had lost his tail — I want company 
before confessing* too much. Ar in en who pass their lives 
in a chase after money insane? Ar men w T ho nurse hate 
and keep it up for a lifetime insane? Ar fashionabl Christ- 
ians insane, and doubly insane, when they know that their 
brethern ar dying of want and, insted of flying- to their 
relief, defend the accursed system that is filling our cities 
with the spirit of hell? I hav been in a world where the 
veil is lifted, where all our petty distinctions ar at an end, 
where men and women ar valued for what they ar and not 
for what they hav, and political economists ar weighed by 
the hart and not by the hed, and this same question of in- 
sanity goes a far way. At any rate, after the storm is 
over, I am not ashamed of the motiv that led me on. The 
road to hell, in my case too, was paved with good inten- 
tions. 

As Dr. Hepworth says in his sermon, our good angels 
strive with us to save us from the certain punishment that 
they see in store for us, but we ar free will agents, and al- 
tho I know well now that they strove witl* me as they do 
with you in your folly, I was too determined to stop half 
way. I got up from bed sometimes and walkt the floor 
and thot it over, and the result was always the same — "No 
backward step," I used to say, and months afterwards the 
same words were thrown at me with jeering and lafter. 

The political economists were primarily responsibl for 
my stubborness. This may seem strange, but as I hav 
told you the influence of alredy one mind upon another is 
something wonderful. 

Let me explain how these practical men helpt to pull 
me down. I had red some of their excellent works, and 
after a good many years had come to the conclusion that 
nine out of ten of them had either been born fools or had 
won the cap and bells in after life. " Now,'* said I to my- 



38 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

self, ' ' nine to ten the men I would go to for advice ar of 
the same stamp. The spiritists will say, Go ahed ; the prac- 
tical men will say I am a fool: I'll e'en trust to my own 
judgment," — Or what was left of it, says the sarcastic 
reader. 

And so when I got tired lying on the left side I turned, 
to the right, and hung on to my task with a patience that 
astonishes me to-day. A whip for the horse, a bridl for the 
ass, and — what's the rest of it ? It will do you good to 
turn to your Bible and find out. Perhaps like Sancho 
Quixote in those foolish days you hav almost forgotten 
that such a book exists. It seems strange that I did not 
see that the hole scheme was to keep me in bed perspir- 
ing and worrying until my hole nervous system got to 
such a condition that they could approach me — that the 
hole puffing in my ears that kept on for months was 
simply, in popular language, a blind to keep me in bed 
till the work was done, but I soon had another message 
that convinct me I was right. A pain in the small of my 
back began to troubl me. Clearly, I thot, they mean me 
to stay here and they send this as a sort of a hint that they 
hav means to keep me where they wish till the work is 
finisht, and it was true. They had me alredy under the 
hypnotic influence altho I did not know it. I needed a 
pain on the back, but it should hav been administerd in 
the way that wise king Solomon recomended, by the ap- 
plication of a rod. Let no one doubt the inspiration of 
the Bible. 

It went on until they had control of the emotions to a 
certain extent, and then I began to get really uneasy. I 
had not said a word to my frends, and they had not any 
idea of what was going on. One night that I am not 
likely to forget for some time, I felt that the mind was 
awake while the body slept. The time had come at last, 
and as if with a quick, swaying motion that was rather 
asfreeabl I fell into a trance, and was shockt to hear a 



TRAPPING AN ENTHUSIAST. 39 

chorus of exultant voices far, far away, shouting again 
and again, " Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha !" 

For weeks during the time I had been in bed I had felt 
a slight tremor run over my body almost every second or 
two, and from the "inspiration " that came to me I felt 
sure that it was for the purpose of strengthening my 
nervs, for the fluid, or whatever it is, to pour thru my 
system. Don Quixote hurt himself with literature and 
so did Sancho, and that is all there is about it. 

But all this sham work was over. I was clairaudient. 
I know now that I hurt my nervous system by my cours 
before the trance, but that night's work did a good deal 
of harm. I had certainly red that it was necessary to 
" dominate " the spirits, but it is really wonderful how 
your filosofy leaves you sometimes. 

You hav undoubtedly herd the story of the man who 
became alarmed at the way foolish peopl allow them- 
selves to burn to deth when by the exercise of a littl filo- 
sofy they might easily save themselves. He drild his 
wife in her duty so that, should the fire really come, 
there would not be a vacant chair in the family. As for 
himself — ! Well, the fire did come, and his wife ran for 
her life like a sensibl woman. He put on his clothes as 
camly as if he had been dressing for church and wondered 
at her haste. Why is it that women can't see that calm- 
ness is the very crown and glory of a human being ? He 
got down to the street in due time and began to scold her, 
— " See how quietly I acted, my dear. There was really 
no occasion for such a rush." "Very true, John, very 
true ; but why did you not put on your pants ?" There is 
the hole troubl with the human race. We ar all caught 
without the pants at one time or another. That was my 
forgetful night. 

I went downstairs and awoke Mr. and Mrs. B. and told 
the hole story, and they were as much astonisht as 
you would be if some one came to you at the ded of night 



40 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

with such a trouble on his lied. I lay down on .a sofa in 
the next room and tried to sleep, but the time for that 
was past. There was no peace. I had crost the border 
as many a fool had done before me and many a one is try- 
ing to do to-day. 

The sofa seemed to be alive, by the way it moved be- 
low my cheek. I tried a chair, but the tapping all around 
kept me from sleep, and there was no help for it but 
to suffer. During the worst of it it seemed as if a hot 
poker were passing across my templs. The pain was se- 
vere, the heat was intens, but the skin, I was told, was 
about the normal temperature. I sat thru a night of tor- 
ture anxiously waiting for the morning light. The screws 
had been turned on after the long preparation. When 
the morning came I thot I herd voices shouting far off 'in 
the woods, but I could not be certain about it. I wisht 
then from the bottom of my hart that I had never red a 
word about the marvels of the unseen world, so far, at 
least, as our modern "scientific" gentlmen tell us of them. 
It is a fairly good plan to let others make the investiga- 
tions, is it not, while you profit by them? Selfish? Well, 
this is a world where there ar always plenty of fools. It 
took a long time to train my system down. Cases hav 
been known where peopl hav been caught at the first at- 
tempt and tortured to deth. Moral: Leve it alone,, 
never mind what you read. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Still Trapping. 

It was Sunday and Mr. B. workt with me for some 
time to very littl advantage. He put a wet cloth over my 
face and as soon as it toucht me I was so startld that I 
did not know what to make of my surroundings. My 
eyes were closed, but I saw as clearly as if they had been 
open. Shut your eyes when you read this and all is 
black before you. You ar accustomed to this and do not 
pay much attention . to it. Or take a walk on a dark 
night when, as the saying goes, you cannot see your 
finger before your face, and again all is black around you. 
But suppose insted of black you saw the deepest kind of 
blue as I saw that forenoon whenever I shut my eyes, 
what would you think about it? 

I concluded that there was only one thing to do and that 
was to find a medium who might be abl to giv me some 
advice. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in the train 
going to the city, and awoke refresht and redy for relief 
if it was to be found. We walkt the streets for nearly 
half a day but could not find a "psychic." Sunday was 
apparently a day of rest even for them. 

We succeeded in finding a theosofist, however, with 
rather singular ideas. "We do not believ as the spirit- 
ualists do," she said, "but when the spirits approach us 
we know how to dominate over them." Here, indeed, was 
luck. This was precisely what I wanted, and I askt her 
how the thing was done. She replied that the man who 
knew the modus operandi from beginning to end was not 
in the house just at that moment, but she invited me to 
call again and see him. There was one way of relief, 



42 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

however, she said, that would help me for a short time, 
and that was to smoke and smoke vigorously. This was 
rather a desperate remedy, for smoking does not come 
natural to me, and altho like all ambitious youths I had 
struggld hard to acquire the art in my school days, I had 
less success than most. Tobacco had almost floored me, 
but one is redy for anything at a pinch, and on going 
home I bot some cigarets to perfume the pillow and offend 
the nostrils of my visitors. They did not leav me, and 
as the cure was rather hard to endure I soon gave it up. 
My thanks ar due to my frend nevertheless, altho her re- 
cipe was not a success. She was in ernest, and she did 
what she could. As I hav said it was Sunday, and her 
Bible — "Ists Unveiled " was in her hand — a book which I 
hav never red, but which I am assured is worth its weight 
in gold, at which, if you will allow another pronoun, I 
smile and smile again. A good many things hav been, 
unveiled to me since that afternoon, my unknown sister, 
that I would rather not hav seen, but one of them of 
some littl value is that the less we hav to do with ( l Isis" the 
better it is for us. I hope you will never hav occasion to 
try the cigarets, for they ar not only unbecoming in the 
mouth of a woman, but ar wors than useless to frighten 
spirits. 

I had red somewhere of a medium who complained that 
her visitors could not expect messages, for they visited 
her reeking with tobacco, and she held that there were 
few things the spirits detested wors than the weed. I 
had red this before the cigarets were recommended, and 
as two and two make four I thot — I merely throw that out 
as a reply to the smile that a practical man like yourself 
indulged in just now. I frankly admit that it looks fun- 
ny, but supposing that all your funny remedies for your 
physical and mental evils were laid bare now? Your doc- 
tor has often given you a madder kind of a cure than mine 
and vou have swallowed it like a littl child while he smiled 



STILL TRAPPING. 43 

at yoti behind your back. I am afraid that our good an- 
gels ar often forct to smile at ns — and sigh too. The 
other kind don't smile any, or els my experience goes 
for nothing. 

I slept well on the succeeding night, however, after un- 
dergoing the purring* in the ear that I could not get rid of, 
and I began to think that I was more afraid than hurt ; 
but I concluded to see further into the matter before go- 
ing ahed. 

Something rather strange happened to me on my way 
to the city. Strange then, but not now. I know what is 
said of those who draw inferences, as I shall sometimes do, 
out of trifls, but I am as stubborn as the rest of les/ous. 
A mere coincidence, those who ar not acquainted 
with the literature on the subject will call it, but I know 
better. Passing along the street on the way to the station, 
and wondering where I should find some one to giv me 
counsel, I glanct at a news-stand, and there before me lay 
a magazine devoted to the hidden world. It was publisht 
in the city, and I took down the address. About two 
hours afterwards as I was serching for the place, for I 
was a stranger in the city, I suddenly lookt up to the top 
of a high building, and there was the signboard. I thot I 
was several blocks away from my destination. I havhad 
too much experience since then to be satisfied with 
"chance." 

From the office I went to a medium who told me he 
could not do anything for me. " Go to Richard Roe, and 
he will advise you." I found Richard after a time. He 
was rather a plesant man, and the second medium that I 
had ever talkt to. " You hav herd voices?" he inquired 
after I had stated my case. " Well, I was in a kind of a 
trance." I replied. " I think I herd them, but I don't 
want to be too positiv. " " Well, you ar a very fortunate 
man." said Richard. Roe " You ar in the right path, and 
you will develop after a time. If you do not care to take les- 



44 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

sons from me, you will develop if you go on in your present 
way, and everything will come out all right." A strong 
feeling that I was on the right path came over me and I 
felt happy. I did not know then how easily feeling was 
manufactured. We talkt for an hour or so, and he related 
many of his strange experiences to me, and I listened and 
congratulated myself that I was not in such a bad corner 
after all. He cured the pain in my back in a few minutes. 
It makes me laf now as I think of it. The hypnotic in- 
fluence was simply taken off for a short time, and that 
was how the "cure" w^as effected. 

I rose to say good-by and he accompanied me to the 
door. ' ' This hole talk of peopl going wrong is nonsens. 
It is becaus they do not understand it. I could get a great 
many peopl out of asylums who hav gone wrong if I 
only had the chance. " We parted, and Richard Roe took a 
good fee? No, that is where you ar mistaken. He did not 
take a cent, and he was not rolling in welth by any means. 

Now, I think Richard is wrong. I think he is in a bad 
business — a forlorn and shipwreckt brother, but he seemed 
to be good harted. Perhaps he knew that I was nearing 
the rapids, — perhaps again he did not — but I wish he was 
out of it, for even altho I felt perfectly certain that he had 
deceive! me I could not get angry at him. During later 
days the evil spirits did their worst to get me enraged at 
him as at others but they did not succeed, for w r oe to the 
man who lets his temper get the better of him while the 
fight is going on. Insane, they say, and many do go in- 
sane under the torture, but as a cold blooded fact there 
can be no possibl crisis where you need all of your wits 
so much as when the cursings and blasfemies,the lies 
and slanders ar howling around you, when, do the best 
you can, you ar forct to belie v some of them. 

Richard Roe did not believ in the divinity of Christ. I 
hope he will put himself in better array for the next world, 
for unlike many he knows that there is one. 



STILL TRAPPING. 45 

I went home convinet that I was on the right road, and 
that the voices I herd were frendly ones, for I had often 
red that the spirits tried to frighten anyone who pene- 
trated into their relm. I told my frends that I was deter- 
mined to go to the end of it, and altho they thot it folly, 
I talkt lernedly on the subject, and as I was quietened 
down we concluded that it was a kind of a nightmare that 
had troubld me. We laft over my scare and things went 
on as usual. mm* 

Satan had an easy mark. Had I stopt there, I would 
hav had some troubl, but very littl, comparativly speak- 
ing. The voices stopt and I went on perspiring. They 
fild me as full of soothing thots as they sometimes fill you 
when you ar nearing the rapids. 

Had I stopt there, however, I would still hav been a 
believer in spiritism, and a disbeliever in the divinity of 
Christ. It has not been all loss. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Thk Gift of Tungs. 

V 

I was now more firmly convinet than ever that I was on 
the right track, and I went on with a light hart. Mr. and 
Mrs. B. had stopt all experiments by this time, for they 
were not sure about it, and I wanted to see the outcome 
before inviting anyone to keep me company on my jour- 
ney. 

I soon made a littl more progress. My new experience 
sent me up to the clouds. I had often wondered how thot 
transference was managed in India. How was it that dur- 
ing the Indian mutiny the news of an important batl was 
known among the nativs long before the British officials 
herd of it? The best horses were at their service and yet 



40 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

the nativs with no horses at all outstript them. I thot 
that the adepts had simply discovered some law of which 
we ar as yet ignorant, but now, like the ministers, I think 
that they ar tinder the direct control of the Evil One. I 
once laft at this theory of our reverend frends, and I 
should not like to discourage any scientist who disagrees 
with them. The more we know of natural laws the better 
certainly, but I would not like to set any more false views 
afloat in a world full of error. I think I am right, and that 
is enuf for me. Now for my experience. 

One day I was sitting in an old orchard thinking of the in- 
visibl world, and enjoying myself as a man at peace with all 
his fellows, when suddenly to my surprise, for it was the 
last thing in the world I was thinking about, a long sen- 
tence in French was shot thru my hed as if by some pro- 
cess of mental telegrafy. The writing* on the brain had 
come at last. I undertood it and was exultant. 

Now, I had studied French for several years ; I had livd 
among French peopl, and had spoken it redily, altho I 
had occasionally, like other worthy fellow mortals, to make 
a respectful circuit around some of the frases. I knew 
the language fairly well ; I had red some of the literature, 
and for one year in particular I had red from ten to twelv 
hours a day. In some respects then, I knew French bet- 
ter than the average student for I had workt hard at it, 
and hard work counts for something here as elswhere. 
But I had scarcely spoken a word for three years, and had 
red but littl, so that when I had occasion to speak it I 
found that it took me sometime to remember the words, 
and many of the verbs, old familiar frends, had departed. 
But now there was not the least hesitation. I replied 
like a flash, and for two hours I sat there, with an occa- 
sional rest, which was fortunate for me, the words rolling- 
thru my brain like a torrent. Now, thinks I to myself, I 
am at last in connection with the higher intelligences and 
this is what I have been waiting for. I was so thuroly 



STILL TRAPPING. 47 

hypnotized that my brain was workt upon like the keys of 
a piano. Had I not diverted my attention to one thing 
and another around me during this mental process the 
crisis would hav come there and then. But the work did 
not continue long enuf and I escaped. Concentration is a 
good thing in this world, but nature takes care that we 
cannot concentrate our minds too much on one subject 
for too long a time. Try it, and you will find your thots 
shooting in a good many different ways. We can concen- 
trate our minds sufficiently for all practical purposes and 
that is enuf. Too much of it would overwork the brain 
very soon as I found out afterwards when there was no 
divering thot allowed, but when the mind was kept on 
the stretch. 

The process is not the same as thinking. Do not let 
any one think so, It is another and different sensation 
altogether. 

Another "inspiration" struck me during the cours of 
the conversation. Can this be the gift of tungs? Can I 
bid good-by to grammars and dictionaries? 

Perhaps I ot to be ashamed to confess it, but the truth 
is that I, vSancho Quixote, a member of one of the leading 
houses of Spain, if not the leading one- Sauvez les papiers 
de la maison de Quichotte, — can not for various reasons 
that need not be specified speak my native language with 
anything like the facility that characterized my lerned 
cousin Don Quixote, but I can read it and venture to mum- 
bl a littl of it when I am sure that none of my country- 
men ar within earshot. I tried Spanish by the new route 
and was so elated with the result that I could have jumpt 
out of my skin. At last, after a long wait I could go 
back to La Mancha without fear and without reproach. 

I carried on a mental conversation in Spanish as redily 
as in French or English, and just as fast Our medical 
frends can explain this as they pleas. The lact remains 
that I, who had scarcely ever had occasion to speak this 



48 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

language, carried on a conversation in it with my unseen 
companions, and that the answers and questions and gen- 
eral remarks flowed as rapidly as if I had never spoken 
any other language in my life. Some of my readers may 
be surprised at this, but I was not in the least, for there 
ar men and women alive to-day who do the same thing. 

Then I tried Scotch — a patois, some irreverent peopl 
call it, — and words and sentences forgotten for many years 
came back as tho I had never stopt using them, and I 
smiled as incident after incident of my childhood and boy- 
hood was brot before me in the old setting. ' ' This is to 
be something wonderful for me. "I thot. ' ' Now I shall be abl 
to speak Chinese or Choctaw, hob-nob with the Laplander 
and scold the Moujik in his own tung. " 

Almost from beginning to end of my sorry venture I 
got just about everything I expected — they were fooling 
me to the top of my bent, and luring me on. It is 
true that I got something that I did not expect, but that 
is a horse of another color. Don't you think that smile 
was rather ungenerous? You think that it came from 
you, as I did when I herd wailing that I thot was from my 
f rends suffering on my account, and my lips were smiling. 
You ar mistaken. It comes from my enemy. He sends 
them regularly to you. 

I tried German, which I did not understand, and they 
amused themselves with me. I could not understand 
what they sent and neither could I reply. I tried other 
tungs that I did not know with the same result. And 
now, says my critic, there is an end to the gift of tungs. 

It may be said that altho I had never spoken Spanish 
the rules of the language had once been lernt, and that 
by some means or other the memory had been awakened 
into a state of abnormal activity, as in the case of peopl 
drowning whose hole life is mirrored before them in a 
few seconds, and I shall hav something to say about that, 
too, for the drawers of my memory were unlockt later on; 



STILL TRAPPING. 49 

but for me, knowing what I do of the subject, both from 
theory and experience, there is no other explanation than 
hypnotic influence. It is really writing on the brain as 
distinct from the process of thinking as anything can be. 
It cannot be explained, but it can be felt. And just sup- 
pose that for, say six months, I had ampl time to com- 
pare the two processes? And just suppose, further, that 
if I let my mind go a wool gathering, as we ar all in- 
clined to do, it would begin again, and that the messages 
ar very often of an unplesant nature, what then? 

I hav herd a good deal of French spoken, but I hav 
never herd a Frenchman speak so well as I did that day. 
I had never spoken much Spanish ; then I spoke it as 
easily as English. Scotch I knew, and the theory of the 
drawer of memory will pass there if you insist upon it 
but for the other two languages it is wors than preposter- 
ous — it is silly. If I did not take the troubl to speak 
aloud it was just becaus there was no necessity for it. 

What made that long French sentence come to my 
mind? I had no more idea of speaking or thinking about 
French at that time than of looking for the moon at mid- 
day. The psychic explanation is the only rational one. 
The wonder is that with the evidence we alredy hav there 
ar men who doubt it. 

The Puritan idea is right. We ar surrounded with good 
and evil spirits, and they look upon our slightest acts with 
anxious solicitude. This world we hav receivd to govern 
is a very serious one, and woe to the man who does not 
find it out before it is too late for his comfort. 

It is just as well not to moralize too much, but I shall 
conclude this chapter by counseling any one who reads it 
to act at all times as if his fellow men knew his thots, for 
we ar indeed surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who 
know every thot which passes thru our heds. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
My Ears ar Opend. 

There was nothing for mo now but to put on full steam 
and go ahed. I was no longer working in the dark. The 
thot transference stopt for a time, but I looktupon the ex- 
perience in the orchard as simply an encouraging hint to 
keep on with my work, and went to bed and perspired 
and worried because I was so slow in getting to the top of 
Mount Olympus. The puffing, or to be more correct I 
should say, the puis beating, for it was just as if a strong 
puis was at work — went on in my ears and I was certain 
that I was making rapid progress. Who was it who had 
ears just like mine then? Bottom was it? Some name 
like that. 

I was sure my good angels were leading me on to green 
pastures. Perhaps I might as well confess here before 
we go further, that it is a littl embarassing for me to speak 
of my good angels in spite of the assurance of Dr c Hep- 
worth that we all hav them. Good wine needs no bush, 
and I might hav writn this book without taking shelter 
below the wing of a practical man, but it is sometimes 
well to hav good company. I hav been inclined to be re- 
served about all matters connected with the next world 
in the past, and now I am going to lay everything bare 
in a way that few do. Who was it who made that often 
quoted remark about the religion of a gentlman? And 
why then should a Sancho open his mouth, or wear his 
hart upon his sleev for the rest of you to peck at? When 
I was in the asylum a good natured patient told me that 
his angel had told him such and such things, and altho I 



OUR EARS AR OPEND. 5 1 

should not hav done it, I smiled and pitied him. Per- 
haps you smile and pity me. 

The elderly Scotch woman when askt if she knew what 
luv was said that she knew in the abstract. It is one thing 
to write of angels in the abstract, as the lerned doctor does 
and quite another to write as I am doing. I shall speak 
of good angels deliberately then, for I could easily take 
another tone in this book and give scorn for scorn. 

One night shortly after this as I was sitting on the porch 
with the chair rocking quietly under me — I knew where 
the motiv power came from — I thot I herd a buzzing 
sound all around me. I thot that it was the voices I had 
longed and workt for, and I was glad of it, but I went to 
bed that night without having herd them. I herd some- 
thing els, however. Likely enuf some of my readers hav 
red of the astral bell. Perhaps others ar a littl skeptic- 
al. It is difficult to get a man to believ that there may be 
a bell ringing in the air which he cannot hear, but which 
his neighbor listens to. That is humanity all over. But 
still it moves, said poor old Galileo, and they laft at 
him. 

I was rather pleased to hear the soft, delicious, liquid 
sound, altho I do not know how it is effected. I had red 
something in its favor and it was becoming that I should 
listen to it with plesure. There is an impressiv scene in 
one of Conan Doyle's novels that deals with a British offi- 
cer who herd this sound for the first time. ' ' God help 
us!" he said. That would hav been my exclamation also 
had I known to what it was the prelude. It is well, in 
one sens, that we cannot see far ahead. 

It sounds well in fiction, and I rather enjoyed it — at first. 
You know altho there were a thousand peopl around 
you that the sound reaches your ear alone. I seldom herd 
it thru the day, but as soon as I went to my room at night 
it began. I waxt quite poetical over it sometimes. I thot 
of Bret Hart's lines: 



52 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

" Bells of the past whose unforgotten music 
Still fills the wide expans, 
Tinging the sober twilight of the present 
With color of romance." 

But the romance was soon colored with reality. 

I had begun another folly that brot on the crisis sooner 
than it might otherwise hav come. I had red something 
of the way in which the lerners in India hypnotized 
themselves by rock-cristal gazing and other means, and 
shortly after the beginning of my serch for wisdom I began 
to gaze hard and fast at a certain object for a short period. 
I gazed so hard at the ceiling sometimes that the white 
plaster appeard as if it were purpl. This lookt danger- 
ous, and I often stopt while at it and askt myself if I was 
not going too far. "No," I would reply, "I will go to 
the end of it. " " Ar you still determind to go to the end 
of it Sancho ?" was a question I often listened to when 
it was too late. " Sweet littl man!" 

One day as I was undergoing the ear-opening process, 
I closed my eyes, and suddenly there was a small ball of 
deep-colored purpl past down before me. I saw them of- 
ten enuf afterwards when I did not like them half so well 
as I did the first one. 

The ceiling was spred over for several yards at a time 
with this color, and a strange pale light began to appear 
before me on the wall. If, for exampl, I lookt at a door 
or window and then directed my eyes to the plaster wall 
the object would be fotograft before me. 

I did not need to stare so hard in after days to hyp- 
notize myself. It is no troubl to throw yourself into the 
hypnotic state after you hav acquired the habit. I do 
not know, after all, if we really do it ourselves. I am in- 
clined to think that there is no such thing as auto -hypno- 
tism. I do not believ that one man can hypnotize an- 
other. I think that what we speak of as auto-hypnotism 
is just this — That by one means or another we put our 






OUR EARS ARE OPEND. 53 

nervous system into such a condition that the spirits 
around us can acquire a power over us that under normal 
conditions they would not hav. There ar men who seem 
to us to hypnotize patients. My impression is that the 
work, either for a good or a bad purpose is done behind 
the scenes. There is plenty of literature on the subject 
which you can read if you choose. My candid advice to 
the average reader is, don't. Go out and count the trees 
and you will find it a far more profitabl way of passing 
the time. 

At last the voices I had waited and workt for became 
audibl, and surely it was a happy day in my life. The 
indistinct buzzing I had herd was turned into a joyous 
burst of song that made the hills and valleys around me 
seem as the gateway of the immortal city. Faint at first, 
certainly, and far off, but the glorious harmony reacht 
my ears and thrild me thru and thru. Whenever I 
chose to open my ears it began. I had only to wish for 
it and it came. I had only to wish for a certain tune and 
it was redy. I smiled as I compared the reality with the 
plesant romance of Mr. Bellamy. 

I workt hard then. I never left my pillow for more 
than an hour or so in the middl of the day, but when the 
gloaming came I sat down at my leisure and listened to 
the voices of the sirens, and surely they never sung 
sweeter to mortal man. 

St. Anthony says in one of his sermons: " We walk in 
the midst of demons who giv us evil thots ; and also in the 
midst of good angels. When these latter ar especially 
present there is no disturbance, no contention, no clamor 
but something so calm and gentl that it fills the soul with 
gladness. The Lord is my witness that after many tears 
and fastings I hav been surrounded by a band of angels, 
and joyfully joined in singing with them." 



CHAPTER IX. 
Hevenly Music from Angelic Hosts. 

" Hark, hark, my soul, angelic song's are swelling 

O'er erth's green fields and ocean's wave beat shore, 
How sweet the truth those blessed strains ar telling 
Of that new life when sin shall be no more. 
Angels of Jesus, 
Angels of light, 
Singing to welcome 
The pilgrims of the night." 

" All the efforts of ten thousand Ethical Societies will count as nothing 
in the furtherance of ethical regeneration, compared with the work of the 
man who shall again convince the world that over beyond the reach of 
man I am thuroly convinct."— T. Davidson. 

"If the proof of immortality is forthcoming, it is my conviction that 
no drowning sailor ever clutcht a hencoop more tenaciously than man- 
kind will hold by such proof— whatever it may be. "—Prof. Huxley. 

" Take me away, or I shall cry," said Carlyleto Froude 
one day as they stood in London, listening to that beuti- 
ful hymn which has toucht so many. I herd it sung to an- 
other tune than the ones we know by the beings who sur- 
rounded me — a tune that I still remember, altho I hav 
forgotten many that I herd in those days. 

Surely they never sung sweeter. I hav listened to some 
of the finest singing of the age in a few of the great 
capitals and commercial cities of the world, but that, grand 
as it is and much as I luv it, is to what I herd as the poor 
efforts of the singer in the village choir matcht with the 
great vocalists, the trained voices, of Paris and Vienna. 

I could not understand why they kept so far away from 
me when I was so anxious to hear them, but I thot a part 
of my training in the new school was to lern patience and 
keep humbl. I know now that a great deal of it was to 



HKVENLY MUSIC FROM ANGELIC HOSTS. 55 

keep my mind on the strain. It was often hard to reach 
and my efforts became correspondingly eager to meet 
them half way. 

I felt rewarded for the long work of the months gone 
by when, as I would go out in the evening a beutiful 
tenor voice such as could never come from mortal throat, 
would rise and pour out a flood of liquid melody far away 
on the air till my soul would swell with the joy of the 
strain and long for the life of the blest. Surely this erth 
is a barren wilderness compared with their abiding place. 
The tenor voices were painful in their sweetness, and yet 
the memory of them is half hateful to me now s for I know 
what some of them were sent for. 

I herd too, the high piercing notes of the sopranos an 
octave abuv anything I hav ever herd from our singers, 
and the altos and baritones and the deep bassos, and chor- 
us after chorus soon rolled around mo and fild the land 
full of such glorious harmony that I thot myself in heven. 
Never was such singing herd, I often thot in wonder, and 
yet if I told anyone they would set me down as a madman. 
And so I said nothing except to Mr. and Mrs. B. who laft 
at me, but thot it all right,, with an occasional doubt. 

But terribl as has been my punishment I look back up- 
on that time with something like a longing for the mere 
joyousness of it. From first to last the joy of the singing 
fild me with wonder. Call them demons or angels they 
sing with the hole hart. But when they toucht a minor 
strain it was sad enuf to make one melt away in ecstacy. 
I hav found out since that I was where I had no business 
to be. I hav found out that there were two kinds of angels 
there, and two kinds of melody — but the marvelous sing- 
ing, the solos that rose on the air so sweetly as to make me 
wonder how such music could be produced, the great chor- 
uses of altos and sopranos and tenors, all tho different 
parts flowing together like the flow of a mighty river, not 
a singl flaw in the exquisit harmony, make me look back 



5> OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

to it with longing, and look forward to the time when the 
chorus will greet us on the other side of the river. 

Exalte, un- peu extasie, say some of the authorities, 
Not quite. I hav done some hard-heded business in my 
time, and I was at it then in a hard-heded business way 
too, but to encourage them in their hallucinations I may 
say that on any subject not connected with this occult 
world I was just as I hav always been 3 just as I am now. 
That is how they all ar, says Lobe Lombroso, the man ! 
who can gage your mental status from the shape of your | 
ear. Qu'ils m'amuse beaucoup ces sages ItaliensL 

It is wrong to digress, I know, but do you remember 
what poor Robbie Burns said? 

" Whene'er divinity comes across me 
My readers aye ar sure to lose me/' 

That is just how I feel about the Lombroso tribe, but 
they will have to burn their books on tactics yet. A race i 
of degenerates! 

There were two kinds around me. Listening to the one 
band was almost painful, it was so far off and yet so 
sweet. At any time I awakened thru the night a tenor 
voice would start up apparently at a long distance away 
and the melody was so entrancing that. I could not choose 
but listen and strain my ears lest I should miss a note. 
It was all apart of the scheme that I was so slow in un- 
derstanding — work on the nervs, work on the emotions 
till the time came, and then tear to pieces. 

With the other band it was different. When in the 
horrors I made up my mind if ever I got well to write my 
story to warn others, but not to say a word about the 
music I herd, I was afraid that some one might venture 
into the trap and get caught, but afterwards I concluded 
to tell it all. If any one dallies with it after what ho 
reads in this book he deservs to be punisht During many 
years I had never red anything of consequence against 
the study. 






HEVENLY MUSIC FROM ANGELIC HOSTS 57 

"Tell both sides," the demons shouted at me, "and do 
not play the coward. If it is wrong to venture in here, it 
is wrong to say a word about it, as you will find out when 
you do come. Tell it at your peril" — and so on for 
months. 

There was no need of straining the ear to hear the 
other band. They sung all the old hyms we luv and 
sung them as if within forty or fifty yards of where I was 
sitting. If grim old Thomas Carlyle felt like crying I 
suppose that it is permissibl for me to confess that I was 
often in tears then. Not quite plesant to confess it, but 
it is true. Again, as with our reverend frend, I seek 
shelter below the wing of another. But the music was 
overpowering. Sometimes I could not listen for more 
than a few minutes, it was so affecting. I had to close 
my ears to it and rest. I still had that power, or, as I 
believ, the evil spirits were not allowed to open their 
batteries upon me. I often thot during the dark days 
that I had herd a good deal that was sent for the purpose 
of encouraging me for the struggl, something to show me 
that altho I had made a mistake everything was done for 
me that should hav been done. 

It is aplesure in writing this to think that there is a mul- 
titude of peopl who know that I am telling of facts. A 
serious world indeed — yes, a feeling comes over me that 
prompts me to say now as I think of the past, — a sacred 
world. What fools we ar, rich and poor alike ! 

"Rock of Ages," and "Jesus Luver of my Soul," and 
"Old Hundredth," and "Ballerma " and all the old Chris- 
tian hyms w T hich hav delighted and comforted the souls 
of millions were sung to me then until I felt that I was 
standing upon holy ground. And "Adeste Fideles" too, 
swelled high and higher in the Latin that I did not un- 
derstand, and ' 'Jerusalem the Golden" and scores of the old 
favorits, and still I did not ask myself why it was that 
they sung Christian hyms to me an unbeliever. I was 



5$ OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

blinded. Both sides sung them. Why is it? I was 
cheered by the one side with them, and hired on by the 
other. 

That was a glorious time for me. No wonder I went 
on and on till the doors closed behind me. What would 
you hav done? Take up your hymn books, old and new, 
and pick out your favorits as I did mine, and then think 
of hearing them sung by a great choir invisibl, all the 
parts harmonizing so that it seemed but as one voice, and 
do your best to imagin it, and you will fall far short of 
the reality. Often did I think of the inspired saying, — 
' k Eyehath not seen, nor ear herd, neither hav entered 
into the hart of man the things which God hath prepared 
for them that luv Him." 

" Giv me the wings of faith to rise 

Within the vail, and see 
The saints abuv, how great their joys, 

flow bright their glories be. 
Many ar the f rends who ar waiting to-day, 

Happy on the golden strand : 
Many ar the voices calling us away 

To join their gJorous band- 
Calling us away ! Calling us away ! 

Calling to the better land !" 

Whatever you may think of the divinity of Christ, my 
scientific frend, one thing is certain, and that is that the 
Christian hymns ar sung in the next world as they ar 
here. It will not do to say that it was only the demons 
singing to lure me on. Long after there was no necessity 
to lure me further I herd them as of old, and I herd, too, 
another kind of singing. 

' 'There is a happy land, far, far away," and I knew 
that there was indeed a happy land for those who believd. 
And on and on it went. 

" Oh, we shall sweetly sing, 
Worthy is our Savior King 
Loud let his praises ring, 
Praise, praise for aye." 

I hav said that I could not endure it sometimes it was 
so affecting, — ' 'They stand those halls of Zion, all jubi- 



KEVKNLY 'MUSIC FROM ANGELIC HOSTS. 59 

lant with song!" But I often sat down determined to 
keep my emotions tinder control, and I hav sat for hours 
in the evening listening to it as calmly as tho I had been 
at a sacred concert or grand opera. 

" Littl chtldren, littl children, 
Who luv their Redeemer, 
Ar the jewels, precious jewels, 
His luv and his lost. 

Like the stars of the morning 
His bright crown adorning 
They shall shine in their beuty 
Bright gems for his crown." 

All moonshine, they say, an excited brain. There ar 
some who know better, but they yield up their convic- 
tions to the regular school, and thus error is perpetuated 
from generation to generation. To say nothing of those 
who, unfortunately for themselves, hav had some prac- 
tical experience, the list of the men who stand on the 
side of the reality of the fenomena we encounter on the 
other side of thq border is respectabl enuf to be entitled 
to a hearing. They ar, to say the least, as well qualified 
to judge as the members of the regular school. 

Why did the ministering spirits not save me from what 
came? Why is this a world where men and women hav 
free will? we might as well ask. If a child gets its hand 
burnt by putting it too close to a red hot stove it is likely 
that it will be a littl more careful in the future. 

" Hark, 'tis the voice of angels 
Borne in a song to me 
Over the fields of glory 
Over the jasper sea." 



CHAPTER X. 
Thk Very Gate of Heven. 

" Softly sweet, in Lydian mesure, 
Soon I'll sooth your soul to plesure. " 

The Spanish proverb says that the stone which is fit for 
the building is seldom left in the street. It is a good 
thing to be fit for the building — a good thing to be abl to 
rise to the occasion. Unfortunately I did not know a 
singl note of music then, or els I might hav been abl to 
lay some of the hymns, and songs and marches and all 
kind of music that I herd before you. Just what you ex- 
pected, is it? Let us reason the matter over quietly then. 

I like singing and hav a fair ear, and so it happened 
that I was abl to catch two or three tunes and sing them 
to Mr. B. who understands music. He pronounct them 
of an average quality, and wonderd where I got them, 
for he was a littl skeptical occasionally. We threw them 
aside, for I then expected that I was to listen to the music 
whenever I so pleased, and I did not think it necessary 
to preserv the paltry tunes I had caught when finer ones 
could be had for the wishing. I hav often regretted that 
I did not take more pains to preserv at least a littl of 
what I herd, but there ar no birds in last year's nests. 
Had I taken pains I could easily hav had several dczen 
good tunes to vouch for my expedition into the forbidden 
land — as it is I remember only four. 

But four will answer my purpose fairly well. How did 
it happen that I who had never made an attempt to com- 
pose a tune in my life should be abl to sing four unless I 
had herd them sung to me? The other tune I herd left i 
me, but these four stick. I askt for Gounod's ' 'A ve Maria, I 






THE VERY GATE OF HEVEN. 6 1 

and if they hav not deceivd me, as I am afraid they hav, 
for it is almost too simpl to be taken for that piece of mus- 
ic which I hav never yet herd, that is one of the four. 
It will not matter very much whether it is or not — how 
could I lern it from imaginary voices? And how did I 
lern "Lochaber no more" from them if they were imagin- 
ary? Will an inflamed or an excited brain set me com- 
posing music? Do not let any one think I am insisting 
on these questions too often. It is sufficiently wearisome 
at this late day to hear men talk of "imaginary voices," 
"false hearing, " and the rest of it. It involvs too, the 
theory of possession, the treatment of the insane, and the 
advisability of thousands of our fellow mortals, reverting 
back to the holesom warnings contained in the scriptures. 

We shall leav a great many things behind us when we 
go to the next world, but there will be singing there as 
well as here, and the rapture of it is beyond belief. If I 
may use a wild figure it was as an expans of music — as if 
the hole atmosf ere were swelling with harmony.* 

It was plesant to listen to "Swanee River," "The Last 

* Just as this book is going- to the printer I clip the following- from a re- 
view of an autobiography of the late Gail Hamilton. She had a strange 
experience with the unseen. The book itself I hav not red. I, too, herd 
an instrumental band. 

HER SPIRIT JOURNEYS. 
" To myself it seemed as if my spirit were partially detached from my 
body— not absolutely freed from it, but floating- about, receiving- impressions 
with great rediness, but not with entire accuracy, as if the spirit were made 
to receive impressions thru the bodily organs, and without them could no t 
rely implicitly upon its own observations. Many foolish things I undoubt- 
edly said, but many I distinctly remember to hav refrained from saying 
becaus I knew they were foolish." 

* 
* * 

To those who liv in dred of deth this woman left much consolation. 
SHE SAW AN OLD FRIEND. 

" Immediately in the distance I herd a sweet voice singing- a familiar air. 
While trying to recall the voice, A. B. (a dear trend) stood before me. She 
and her band seemed to fill all space with a flood of angelic melody, while 
from a distance, softly harmonizing with the voice of the singer, was herd the 
rich strain of an Instrumental band. My delig-ht was intens; it was too 
much for my poor weak nature, I lost consciousness. When again myself the 
band had gone." 



62 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Rose of Summer/' ' 'Annie Laurie," "The Soldiers' Chorus 
in Faust," and the plaintiv music of "II Travatore. " 

I never tire of the sad wail of the "Miserere," but if our 
singers herd it as I did they would behalf ashamed to bow 
to the applaus that now greets them. 

Then, for variety, I would wish to hear them sing in 
rounds. The sopranos would begin, the tenors would fol- 
low, and the other parts would fall in just where I wished 
them to do so. 

Then as I herd some of the songs rise, I would forget 
everything but the music, forget the seriousness of my 
position lookt at in any light, and say "Da cabo a Mes- > f 
dames les sopranos!" and an answering voice would shout r 
lafing — poor fool that I was — "M. Quichotte dit da cabo a . 
Mesdames les sopranos." And all around me were rage 
and hate that could have devoured me, and luv that pitied I 
me in my folly, — moorings lost and drifting out on the 
ocean. 

I did not understand then that there were evil spirits 
around me savage with rage and anxious to get me com- 
pletely under control. It is not everyone who ventures I 
so far among them. Do you think it was good spirits j 
who sung to me the wild emotional march of the Marseil- | 
laise? Do you think it was they who sung the war songs 
that fire our blood until we get redy to trampl every law ] 
of God under foot in our devilish rage? Ar they engaged [ 
in that kind of singing do you think? I am perhaps as , 
found of war songs as any one, and I catch myself hum- i 
ming them often enuf, but I hav been asking myself of 
late, i 'Is this the Christian spirit that recognizes no bound- J 
aries, to sing the songs that to-day as a hundred years ago, 
inflame one peopl against another?" I like them, I say, 
passionately ; they stir the blood like a trumpet, but let it 
be distinctly understood, once for all, that the spirit of the 
New Testament or the spirit of many of these songs has 
to bite the dust, and you who read this will help to decide 



THE VERY GATE OF HEVEN. 63 

which. You don't think so? Then you ar still in the 
bonds of iniquity. 

I think the sensation we feel when we wave our arms and 
sing "Marching Thru Georgia," "wScots Wha Hae," "The 
Watch on the Rhine/' or when we shout on the Boule- 
vards, "A Berlin! A Berlin!" is instilled into us by a pro- 
cess that I hav felt too often. Fancy our Savior with a 
sword in his hand. 

As I hav been unwittingly drawn into the subject just 
look at the Christian nation of America shouting a few 
months ago for war with Great Britain. Some of our Chris- 
tian frends will yet get the scales pulled off their eyes. 
Talk about war here, and there ar always loud-mouthed 
fools telegrafing over the continent that they ar pr epared 
to raise such and such a number of men to go to the front 
instantly. If such things were done in much criticised 
Europe the continent would be aflame with hell in a few 
weeks' time. "Patriotism" of that sort does not smell 
merely ; it stinks. Enuf of it. 

As singing does not make up all of life I tried some- 
thing els both for instruction and variation. I would take 
a French or Spanish book and keep my eyes on the page 
and listen to the voice, and surely I hav never herd bet- 
ter pronounciation or more careful reading. I used to think 
that if I could not get the gift of tungs I would hav a fair 
substitute that would help me to keep the two languages 
up to a respectabl standard. 

When I askt myself months afterwards what it had all 
ment, how it was they did not open on me sooner than 
they did, the frendly voices would say to me — "No, you 
cannot understand it now, but if you knew the meaning 
of it from beginning to end you would be very much sur- 
prised. " So will we all be some day when we seethe 
narrow escapes we hav sometimes had. The prayer to be 
preservd from unseen dangers has a great deal of mean- 
ing for me. Hay de me, senores! Que Sancho Quixote 



V4 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

estaba gran bur lador y gran bobo tambien en estos dias! 
But the change was near at hand. One night I awoke 
and instantly the twenty-third psalm arose. I lay and 
listened to it and enjoyed the singing as usual, but con- 
trary to my previous experience I could not close my 
ears. On and on it went without stop. I felt that I was 
in rather a peculiar position. If this does not stop soon, 
I thot, it will drive me mad. But it came to an end when 
I was twisting and turning around in my nervousness at 
the long insupportabl strain. I concluded that they had 
been playing a littl joke upon me and went to sleep again. 

When I awoke in the morning my whole body was 
tingling with a strange something that surged thru me as 
stedily as the beating of a puis. It went thru me from 
hed to foot with a force that surprised me. Can this be 
the ether, I thot, the mysterious fluid, the od, the any- 
thing, that the wise men tell us goes from star to star all 
thru the univers? And the answer came — for by this time 
I was on speaking terms with my unseen companions — 
"We ar simply keying you up in tune with the univers," 
and I laft, but it sounded reasonably enuf , for I had be- 
gun to attribute the marvelous harmony of the singing to 
some mysterious force that held all the voices together. 

Then, you see, by this time, I believd a good many 
strange things, for I was under the hypnotic influence to 
some extent. Something happened too, that made me think 
that there was more or less truth in their theory. They 
began to sing and told me- to sing with them. Now, I 
cannot sing very well, and I frankly acknowledge it and 
beg to be excused in advance. There is a slight obstruc- 
tion of some kind or another in my throat that simply 
precludes me from humoring my frends or doing any- 
thing startling in this direction, but on this and subse- 
quent occasions it was removed. My voice was altered to 
some extent quite a number of times, but I speak of these 
two occasions because the change was most pronounced 



THE VERY GATE OF HEVEN. 65 

then. They started a tune I did not know, and I imme- 
diately began to sing bass with them in spite of the fact 
that the tune was new, and I sung like a trained singer. 
How did I keep the time? The surging feeling in my 
body kept me to the exact time, long or short notes, and 
I thot that I had surprised a great secret. 

" Of Prometheus how undaunted 
On Olympus shining" bastions 
His audacious foot he planted. 
Myths ar told and songs ar chanted, 
Full of promptings and suggestions, 

Beutiful is the tradition 
Of that flight thru hevenly portals ; 

The old classic superstition 

Of the theft and the trans mission 
Of the fire of the immortals ! 

First the deed of noble daring, 

Born of hevenward aspiration. 
Then the fire with mortals sharing, 
Then the vulture— the despairing 

Cry of pain on crags Caucasian." 

So Longfellow tells us of it. I often thot of his poem 
in later days in a lafing, comic sort of a way, and the 
shout would come. " Yes, you fool! but Prometheus 
took something with him, and you go out empty handed." 

Many of the voices I herd at this time were those of 
frends and relativs who had died or were far from me. I 
knew their voices, and there was no mistake about them. 
It was with a strange feeling that I listened to the 
voices of those who were ded. They spoke to me, and 
sung to me, and told me of their life in heven, and spoke 
of the work they had done for Christ on erth. Was it a 
wonder that I should be fooled? 

There was another feature about their singing that 
charmed and surprised me. Very often when I would ask 
for any well-known hymn or song they would sing the 
words we know. But the tune would be entirely different, 



'66 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

and there was never the least hesitation in beginning. It 
is evident that improvisation is a very simpl matter in the 
next world. I listened to dozens of old songs and hyms 
in new settings. What a famous composer I must have 
b>een in those days ! What a pity the reporters did not 
catch me in time, for we ar all a littl tired of the men who 
take themselves for Czars, Emperors, Grand Moguls, 
Grand Muck-a- Mucks and so on. A composer might hav 
igiven a littl variety to the story. 

One of two things is true — either that singing was real 
• or els I must, in that dual, unconscious personality we 
lav herd about, be the most famous musician who has 
ever livd, and that theory would involv me into troubl 
and loss of self-respect considering what that same person- 
ality develop t into later on. 

But the harvest was past the summer was ended, the 
leavs were falling off the trees and the quiet and enjoy- 
ment I had hitherto experienct were near an end. Sic 
transit gloria mundi, say the lerned men with a sigh, and 
others of us say with our filosofical frend Sancho Panza — 
Hay muchos que van por lana, y revien esquilados. 

But making all due allowance for the devil dressing him- 
self as an nngel of light could it be possibl that such glori- 
ous music was used to entrap me? 

It seems xwful to me even yet. Listen to them as if 
they were pouring out their souls in an ecstacy of rapture ! 
Do you hear it rising to the simpl old tune of Autum? 
Could I even yet by the mere wish and a littl hard work 
"hear it? Does a burnt child dread the fire? But listen, — 

"Glorious things of thee ar spoken 
Zion city of our God ; 
He whose word cannot be broken. 
Formed thee for His own abode. 
On the Rock. of Ages founded 

What can shake thy sure repose ? 

With salvation's walls surrounded 

Thou art safe from all thy foes." 



CHAPTER XI. 

Fiends and Hypnotism. 

" Fierce he broke forth; * And dar'st thou then 

To beard the Hoc in his den, 
The Doug-las in his hail V 

And hop'st thou hence unscath'd to go ? 
No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no! 

Up drawbridge grooms! 

What warder ho 
Let the portcullis fall!" 

One night I awoke and herd voices that seemed to be 
within three feet of my ear, and they were not speaking 
to me as formerly in a f rendly way, but cursing and blasf em- 
ing slowly and impressivly. What made it so terrifying^ 
to me was the fact that there was no passion in the accent. 
They went on in such a concentrated way as if so sure that 
they had me in their power that there was no need of 
hurrying, and so they curst and blasfemed deliberately. 
It was a horribl awakening out of my dream, but I am not 
the first who has past thru it, and I hav been often as- 
sured since that I shall not be the last. There ar certainly- 
plenty of fools in the world, and there may be some fool- 
ish enuf to tamper with this forbidden thing even after 
reading this book, but they do it at their own peril. 

The horror went on and on without stopping and I be- 
came half dazed. What could it all mean? I had really 
thot, with some misgivings, that I was on the right track: 
to do some service to my fellow men, and I awoke to find 
myself in the company of demons. I had prayed ernestly, 
and believd that I was undergoing a long cours of my 
preparation for something that was to come, and here I 
was at the end of four months' striving landed in the mire 



68 OUR. UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

up to my neck. What did I do? I forgot the instruc- 
tions to "dominate" the spirits, and fell upon my knees 
and askt God to forgiv me for my blindness and trans- 
gression for Jesus Christ's sake. 

A trifl cowardly, you may say, but that is human nature 
often, and especially when you feel that there is a great 
fight ahed of you where human aid can avail but littl. I 
had belie vd that Christ was only an extraordinary man, a 
man to be luvd certainly as I always had luvd him, for 
who in these times when it has either to be a great for- 
ward march of dogma and boundless faith as I believ, and 
believd before I turned again to Christianity, or terribl 
wars that will sweep this planet of ours with the besom of 
destruction, — Who that has a spark of the new spirit that 
is rising in all lands can help luving the character and 
spirit of Christ which would put an end to war and rumors 
of war if w r e would only let it reign. Emerson tells us that 
all great ages hav been ages of faith, and men of sens now 
see that it has to be faith in something els than money 
gathering if we ar to bring in the greatest of all the ages 
which, I believ, is just ahed of us. 

And Fichte told the truth when he said, — "Christianity 
still carries in its bosom a power of renovation that many 
ar far from suspecting. Up to the present it has only act- 
ed on individuals and thru them on the state. But he who 
has been abl to appreciate its hidden spirit whether as a 
believer or an independent thinker, will admit that one 
day it will become the internal and organizing force of so- 
ciety, and then it will reveal itself to the hole world, in all 
the richness of its benedictions. " 

All independent thinkers, even if- not Christians, know 
that the New Testament is the most democratic book in 
the world. If our microscopic frends try to make it any- 
thing els it i§ because they ar busy with the letter as an 
excuse for neglecting the spirit. 

Now that I hav had time to consider my change and 



FIENDS AND HYPNOTISM. 69 

look at it quietly and smile at the momentary haste I hav 
never regretted it. I hav been happier sometimes in the 
midst of the torture than in periods of prosperity. Doubts 
and struggls enuf hav come, for I hav been in a strange 
position, but I hav lerned to pay littl attention to feelings 
for they ar pumped into us very often at the will of our 
enemies. I believ that by accepting Christ then I past 
thru the trial as I could not hav done without Him, — 
goggle-science to the contrary notwithstanding. Faith 
is the supplement of reason. We don't know everything 
yet, as I hav found out. 

But I am again abusing the privlege of an insane man 
and running you along a spur insted of the main track. 
It is a good rule to keep on the main line and tell all about 
the spurs afterwards, but it is well known in these days 
that insanity is closely allied to genius, and I am showing 
the way to set ancient maxims to one side. 

I concluded after I had suffered this infliction that it 
was about time for me to get out of the occult world — if I 
could. It is a sin to digress once more, but did you ever 
read the story of the animal that went down into a well 
and could not get up again? It had to listen to some sage 
advice about not venturing into a place unless the way 
out was clear. Not very plesant advice, and perhaps if 
we think as highly of charity as the apostl Paul did, 
not very necessary, for the poor brute was likely enuf 
feeling just that way as he lookt up and saw his 
critic smiling at the top. I know the feeling. I did 
not visit any one for information this time. I made up 
my mind that I would get out of a bad corner in due 
time, and I had lost faith in the profets of the occult 
world. I was in it, and theory is not nearly so convinc- 
ing as reality. 

I went to the city determind to find work and get rid 
of the whole foolish business, to be content with this 
world we see around us as others ar, but I found that my 



JO OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

enemies clung- to me, as they will to us all till deth do us 
part, if we ar wise in time. 

Tappings went on all around me. I herd strange noises, 
and whenever I sat down I knew by certain tokens that I 
was not alone. Another disturbing feature caused me a 
great deal of suffering. The astral bell still kept ringing, 
and as soon as I entered my room at night it began and. 
peald away in the darkness and caused me unaccountabl 
irritation. I would hav given anything to get rid of it. 
What was a plesure in my salad days became unendurabl, 
but my feelings were not consulted. It began with its 
soft tingling and kept on till I could have run any 
where to escape. "What is the matter?" I askt myself. 
"How can this bell affect me so much? Let it ring and 
pay no more attention to it than to an ordinary one in a 
steepl. " I did not quite understand then that it was not 
the bell itself that tortured me, but the hypnotic power 
the evil spirits had acquired over me. 

I was living near a railway, and as in the erly days 
when they w T ere leading me gently on to the precipice the 
spirits and I were on good terms, I said one day when a 
train was passing, — "Hush! Don't you know that that is 
the train of that great man, the honorabl John Doe? Let 
us keep quiet until it passes. " A low, peculiar whistl 
came as an answer, and every time a train past after this 
the same sound came to me as distinctly as tho within a 
few feet of my ears. This, too, like the bell, became a. 
scource of torture. Can a man touch pitch without beings 
defiled? And when I was driven to prayer for relief 
there was no peace, and I knew then what I had lost. As 
soon as I began the mocking began with me, and whistling, 
and bell, and jeering, and cursing, and blasfeming. A 
very serious world indeed. Kindly warnings ar given us 
to let it alone, but when you hav taken the first step and 
come to look upon the Bible as upon the Koran and other- 
books of a like nature the rest is easy. 



FIENDS AND HYPNOTISM. 7 1 

I felt an inexpressibl sens of loss when I found that I 
could not be alone for a minute. We ar all surrounded, 
but I was conscious of it, and it makes a good deal of dif- 
ference. If you think that you hav nothing els to thank 
God for, you should be grateful that the veil is not lifted. 
Many who to-day ar talking lernedly, and some who ar 
talking scoffingly, would change their opinions if they 
were brot face to face with the realities only for five short 
minutes. 

Strange noises were sometimes herd around the house. 
One night Mr. B. and I were sitting alone when we herd 
an awful clattering passing by like a whirlwind in its 
speed. "What is that?" he askt, and he ran to see. The 
street in front of the house was unpaved; it was soft, and 
about twenty yards past the door it landed in a medow 
that was softer. There was no possibl chance of any wag- 
gon passing, for it was too late and besides there was no 
outlet for one. . "You need not go," I replied, but he was 
alredy out. I knew well enuf what it was and sat still. I 
had red enuf of the experiences of others to know. He 
.-soon came in and said that there was nothing. "Nothing 
visibl," I replied. "But you know that an awful noise 
past here, and I know where it came from. " 

As I hav digrest often enuf alredy I shall end this chap- 
ter by looking forward a few months and telling of some- 
thing that I do not wish to forget, for I am writing this 
book often against my will and without much regard to 
arrangement. It is not altogether a plesant thing to look 
back upon my folly, and I wish the task was finisht in any 
reasonabl manner without paying very much attention to 
systematising the work or writing it in a style to please 
the dilettanti. 

Doubts as to the divinity of Christ were poured upon 
me like'a flood, both in the ordinary way and by the voices 
when the struggl was going on, and I often began to specu- 
late in the old way. Why is there not more evidence to 



7 2 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

satisfy many ernest men and women who cannot believ? 
God is all powerful — Why should He allow them to suffer 
when He could send them relief? If Saul of Tarsus, why 
not others? and the thousand and one objections that the 
subtl ingenuity of the evil spirits threw at me. At such 
times when I was perhaps going too far, and inclined to 
get angry over the hole business, it often happened that 
the screws w r ere applied, as it were, and after gasping for 
a few minutes somehow r or other a strong conviction 
arose in my mind that Jesus Christ was just exactly what 
He represented himself to be — the Savior of the world. 

Some who to-day ar busy with their microscopes may 
hav their doubts settld in the future as I had mine in a 
very strange school. I make a poor preacher, but I hope 
they will consider the matter in time. 

I used to hav a littl jest occasionally like many of you on 
the subject of evil spirits and a devil luling over them, 
but my jesting was soon taken out of me when I met 
them. They ar around us, but outside of the few hints 
given in the Bible, I do not know why. It seems to me 
that we could get along much better without them, but 
that does not change the fact that we hav to deal with 
them and their dedly enmity. Do you remember some- 
thing about not having to war against flesh and blood but 
against principalities and powers? 

"Principalities and powers, 

Mustering their unseen array, 
Wait lor thy ungarded hours, 

"Watch and pray," 

I often thot with bitterness that men would not believ 
my story. They hav Moses and the prof ets and the New 
Testament besides, but if a man rose from the ded to-day 
they would ask for his credentials. 

It has sometimes occured to me since, — Could it be that 
the angels who were watching over me gave the evil spir- 
its permission to exercise their will at those times? We 
know so littl of what is around us that it is hardly worth 



FIENDS AND HYPNOTISM. 73 

while to speculate very much, but I hav seen my waver- 
ing belief in the divinity of Christ come back to me in such 
a strong way under the pressure that the more I look back 
to it the stranger it appears. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Mouth of the Pit. 

The voices still kept around me. I did not expect to get 
rid of them for some littl time, for it had taken me a long 
while to get within range and I was as patient as possibl. 
One day not very long after I was startld in the night I 
went to the city. My troubls commenct shortly after I 
left the house. I past a hand-organ grinding out some 
popular tune and soon I herd it ringing in my ears. I 
moved on as fast as possibl to get rid of it, but it was of no 
use. The pretty littl poem we hav all red says that every- 
where that Mary went the lamb was sure to go, and wher- 
ever I went the tune followed, and rung in my ears as 
distinctly as if the organ had been at my side insted of 
being miles away. Whenever the street car was in motion 
the noise was at the highest, but when it came to a stand- 
still so did my organ. I found out by long experience af- 
terwards that whenever I was near any hissing noise, such 
as steam escaping, or indeed anything that changes the 
vibration of the air the voices would be much mere dis- 
tinct than usual. This perhaps is only imagination. The 
virbration of a railway train affects the nervs, of cours, say 
the medical authorities, and that accounts for it. I must 
then conclude that my imagination was a good deal 
stronger when in the cars than when on foot, and this is un- 



74 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

plesant. I feel inclined to take my stand with the defunct 
Austrian physicians, and with an old Scotch woman now 
ded as well as they, and call for an act to prohibit the run- 
ning of trains. I left the car and wandered on thru the 
streets of the busy city, and whenever I met anything in 
the line of music, down even to the tinkling of the bells on 
the car horses, it went into my ear as a lodging place and 
there tarried. 

Then, too, for the first time I herd voices fairly shout- 
ing and yelling and mocking at me apparently about a 
mile away. I herd them for some months afterwards, 
but they reacht their highest pitch that day. I went from 
one place to another trying to escape, but, of cours, it was. 
of no use. Ah, you cannot realize what a blessed world 
you liv in as it is, until you lift the curtain from the mouth, 
of the pit that is raging around you. Where is hell?' 
some peopl ask. Within us and around us. 

1 'We will follow you to the deth. We will drive you 
insane. How long can a man stand this life? We know. 
It is an old story to us. You fool ! Do you think we were 
amusing ourselves, playing with you all that time? You 
ar trapt as thousands hav been. Now you go whining to 
your Savior to releas you. There is no releas in this 
world. Show us a singl line in the Bible to support the 
pretensions of those peopl who ar coming thru into this 
world. We know it from beginning to end. Yes the Bible 
is true, you fool ! but you, like us, know too late. Accept 
Christ when you were alredy in hell? Things ar not man- 
aged that way here. The body ! The body ! What is the 
body to us? Your mind was in hell when we frightened you 
that night. Not only that, you poor idiot, but that first 
night you meddld with a tabl we acquired a power over 
you. The mind was willing and that is enuf . Christ will 
never accept a man who has to come to hell before he will 
believ on Him. You ar with us now and you ar just go- 
ing to stay and fight on this side. You fool ! You do not 



THE MOUTH OF THE PIT. 75 

hav any idea of what hypnotism is. We will simply make 
you do what we want you to do, and make you luv it. " 

The same sickening feeling comes over me now as I sit 
here at my typewriter as I felt that day. The same in 
nature, but not in degree. I remember it only too well 
I was partly under their control — that is, I herd their 
voices and could not get rid of them. There was as yet 
no danger to myself or any one els. This I know as an 
absolute fact from what took place afterwards. 

They yelled at me for nearly a hole day in the same 
strain as in the foregoing paragraf. Much of what they 
said would hav past by me in my normal state as chaff, 
but my nervous system was pretty far reduced by this 
time, and I swallowed a good deal of it and my hart sunk 
within me. 

Yes, the Bible was really true, and I was among the 
wrong kind of spirits. In the old days they used to stone 
men to deth who. were willing to continue communication 
with them, and they reminded me often enuf of this. 
Whoever knows or does not know the Bible these demons 
know it from beginning to end. They gave me chapter 
and verse and threw discouraging texts at me for weeks 
and months. To many Christians to-day the Bible is a 
strange book. Their dedly enemies know it from Genesis 
to the Revelation of St. John. Indeed, as it may serv to 
keep some of our ponderous f rends humbl, they know 
every book in every language on the face of the erth. 
This wonderful pride of intellect will get some rude 
shocks in the next world. It is an excellent thing to hav 
knowledge if accompanied with humility, but I feel 
ashamed of our species when I think of many articles I 
hav red in our reviews lauding the "educated " man as if 
he were a kind of demigod. Not that we should be con- 
tent with a dull, indifferent ignorance either, but there is 
surely middl ground. 

How very littl we know of one another. I was moving- 



;0 OUR UNSEEN COM PANI IONS. 

along- the street as sensibl looking as my neighbors, but 
they did not suspect that I was listening to voices yelling 
at me, and if I had told the first man I met that such was 
the case he would hav thot me mad. Mad, I certainly 
was, to doubt that the Bible ment what it said. But I 
hav many companions. It was well for me in one sens 
that I knew something of the unseen world, and managed 
to control myself. But I do not wonder that many go 
raving mad under the strain. That day I remembered 
what Richard Roe, medium, had said to me: "There ar 
peopl in insane asylums now thru hearing voices, but I 
could bring many of them out if I got the chance." 

I was told a few days afterwards by my invisibl com- 
panions that I w r as completely hypnotized and that there 
was only one way of getting me clear of the influence. 
That was to let them put me in a trance and I would 
awaken clear of voices and every other annoyance. It looks 
decidedly childlike and bland now, but supposing you 
were in a tight corner and a very, very sympathetic voice 
told you the way out? Supposing again that you really 
believd that your frends were helping you now that you 
were anxious to stop all folly, and you might hav been 
won. vSupposing they pleaded ernestly to let them save 
you? Yes, I know, practical, common sens man, but the 
world is helpt occasionally by dreamers too, altho 
" Men hav no faith in fine-spun sentiment 
Who put their trust in bullocks, and in beevs. " 

I was very unwilling to do it. I had stopt everything 
of the sort, and it lookt wrong to begin again, but I yield- 
ed. It was to be a serious struggl I was told — no one was 
to disturb me from one o'clock to five. If it was not de- 
cided before that hour I had to take what came, but my 
frends were determined to do their best for me. 

I lay down and tried hard to fall asleep, but it was no 
use. The more I struggld the worse I became. And at 
my ear was the voice I herd all afternoon, — and I herd it 



THE MOUTH OF THE PIT. 77 

often eiruf afterwards mocking me with the same words — 
saying to me sharply and emfatically — "Si vous pouvez, 
si vous pouvez," (if you can, if you can.) How on erth 
could I sleep with a voice ringing in my ears? "Exactly so, 
Mr. Quixote," came another voice, "such ar the conditions. 
You must fall asleep with that voice going on or els you 
take your chance. " 

I sometimes arose with the perspiration flowing over 
me. I cannot help lafmg now at the sheer folly of hav- 
ing had anything more to do with them, but if you think 
you can gage the depth of their cunning you ar mistaken. 
It was all madness that leavs a bad taste in my mouth to 
this day. It is sometimes said that a man never amounts 
to much until he has played the fool. I don't quite like 
the theory, but if there is anything in it, your cousin Sancho 
Quixote will astonish you one of these days, for he has laid 
the foundation for future greatness. 

I went down stairs after the struggl with a kind of a 
dred in my hart and said — "I am afraid that I hav got 
into a wors troubl than ever. I hartily wish I had never 
had anything to do with this business." "You will get ov- 
er it all right," replied Mrs. B., "if you will only let it 
alone. I did not like it at all when you said that you would 
try it once more." I found out afterwards that on this oc- 
casion and when I was sitting among the trees with the 
" gift of tungs" rolling on my brain she had been siezed 
with a strange, overpowering presentiment that I was 
nearing dangerous ground, and she was anxious to see me 
stop all future experiments. 

She handed me a letter, which would hav kept me from 
that afternoon's work had I not said that I was not to be 
disturbed. I had seen a sentence in a magazine that I did 
not altogether like. The writer said, as nearly as I remem- 
ber — "I hav visited a good many mediums" — the mare's 
the pity, says Sancho Quixote, — "but as far as I can judge 
I hav seen only two or three who were in communication 



7& OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

with good spirits. Mediumship usually ends in loss of 
helth, morals, and reason. " Another warning that I red 
about the same time spoke of the horribl consequences of 
possession. I did not quite like the look of matters and 
wrote to a frend for advice. He replied in about a coupl 
of weeks — he may laf if he reads this, but I know how 
things ar workt now, and I am sure the devil influenct 
iim to delay matters. "You ar a busy men," said the 
devil to him, — and he is, "take time and answer that let- 
ter. Some man got a littl excited, doubtless," continued 
the devil. His answer was encouraging and frendly as I 
knew it would be altho I had never met him. He spoke 
of the danger from spirits of a low, gross nature — so low 
that the angels could not help them — evolution, eh? — 
spoke also of frolicsome spirits — woe's me — but thot that 
there was no harm in investigating the subject. He slso 
referred to Willie Pel-Mel, who had just about that time 
became an automatic writer and was, as we say here, real 
proud of it. Now, Willie is an agressiv Christian and why 
should Sancho be afraid to follow if Willie leads? And I 
felt comforted, for the Christians ar very busy with this 
same occult study at present. They don't go quite so far 
as Sancho did, but his impression is that they had bet- 
ter give up their automatic writing and all the rest of 
it. 

My frend referred me to an acquaintance of his who 
might assist me, and I wrote to him for advice. Again 
Satan engineered things, for it took about two weeks for 
the answer to reach me, but when it did come it was worth 
reading. I was warned to give up the hole study at once 
and forever. It was rather discouraging, but it was a 
common sens view of the subject of spiritism. It told me 
of men and women venturing into the hidden world and 
losing their reason ; of opening the door to fiends and find- 
ing that they could not shut it, and told me too that medi- 
umship was a sign of weakness and not of strength. 



THE MOUTH OF THE PIT. 79* 

"Well," I thot, altho the plain facts were not very com- 
forting, "I'll get out of it all right." 

Had the answers come a littl earlier, I might hav been 
saved some suffering, but it is doubtful. Had I known 
what I know now I could hav been saved the necessity of 
going to an insane asylum, but I lerned some things there 
that ar worth knowing. Had the proper means been taken 
when I wrote the first letter the crisis would never hav 
come, altho I would not hav escaped with a hole skin by 
any means. 



CHAPTER XIII.. 
The Trap is Sprung by Demons-, 

"He needs a long spoon who sups with the devil. rr 

For several nights Mr. B. slept with me in order to keep 
me company until the storm should pass over. One night 
after I had gone to bed he sat at a tabl busy with some 
work he wanted to finish. I fell asleep in a. few" minutes. 
Here I might as well say that for some time I had lost 
considerabl sleep. Sometimes I lay awake the hole 
night unabl to close my eyes ; but I had plenty of company 
and plenty of conversation. On other nights again I 
would sleep for only an hour or so and then the awaken- 
ing would come. I could not understand it at all. I always 
rose in the morning as fresh as if I had slept for eight or 
ten hours. I had red something of hypnotism, but some- 
how or other I did not understand my own case. The 
lawyer who takes his own case, they say, has a fool for a 
client. I seemed to be completely blinded. 



So OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

I was thrown into a trance immediately on going to 
bed, and my first conversation in that state began at once. 
The mind was awake, but the body lay at rest. I spoke 
as clearly and understandingly as ever I hav done in my 
life. I was as fully conscious of what I was about as I 
am now. I reasoned with my unseen companions, I 
argued, I refused to do certain things, I assented to 
others, and the conversation went on as it does between 
you and your intimate frend, with this difference — the 
mind was not allowed to wander. It was concentration 
with a vengeance. There were no disturbing thots shot 
thru my mind then. Only those who hav past thru these 
trances know how strange and yet how natural it all 
seems. 

I seemed to be in a kind of a luminous atmosf ere speak- 
ing to some unseen frends who laft at my fears, and told 
me that my troubls were nearly over. They told me to 
show that I had enuf confidence in myself and in them 
by asking Mr. B. to go down stairs. I awoke at once and 
told him that I felt all right, and that there was no neces- 
sity for him staying with me. He had red the letter I 
had receivd and \vas unwilling to leav me, but at last he 
consented. Had I told him that it was at the suggestion 
of the spirits that he should leav me alone he might hav 
refused to go, but with the "well-known cunning of a 
lunatic" — hav you ever red that before? — I did not say 
whence came the inspiration. I persuaded him, and I 
believd myself that I was over the danger line, and he 
left me alone with the stars and I hav often been very 
thankful for it since. Ar these things sometimes arranged 
for us? There were evil spirits near me certainly, but 
there were also good ones. Can it be that it was they who 
told me to tell him to leav me knowing what was to follow? 

I went back to bed and fell asleep at once and soon 
very strange things began to happen. I was at once en- 
gaged in a w T onderful conversation : The devil was there 



THE TRAP IS SPRUNG BY DEMONS. 8l 

in person, — at least, I was so assured, and I hav since 
come to the conclusion that he is not far from any of us. 
It was a fight for my soul, I was told, and I belie vd it. 
Then there was a long dispute between the pretended 
good and the bad spirits over my case, and I listened to 
the discussion as I had a perfect right to do. 

What do we hear with? Our ears or our brains? And 
if some one has possession of the brain cannot he make 
us hear without the ears? My body lay there for four or 
five hours that night like a log, but I was listening and 
talking all that time as conscious!}* as I am writing at 
present. How littl we really know of the unseen world 
around us ! 

Then the trial of arms came between me and Satan. I 
and my king, the cardinal put it ; a cardinal in our own 
days spoke of "myself and God," as the two beings he was 
most interested in, q.nd altho there may be those who 
think that I am a littl presumptious I am fairly well 
qualified to judge. I want to raise peopl up ; he, accord- 
ing to good authority, has been a liar and a murderer 
from the beginning and wants to drag them down. Take 
your choice. 

Now he was winning, now I was ahed. The game was 
very, very funny, but they understood the outcome and I 
did not, and could not hav done anything even if I had. 
They curst and swore, pretended good and bad, and I laft 
and jokt and thot the whole thing a piece of fun the one 
minute and a very serious matter the next. They gave 
me problems that Jiad to be solved in the twinkling of an 
eye and as I usually failed the laf came, — "Lost again, lost 
again!" We do not know the savage nature of the wick- 
edness that is near us, and nature is merciful, for I hav 
forgotten a great deal of it but enuf remains for all prac- 
tical purposes. 

I tried my best to win the approbation of my "frend" 
but he usually told me that I was making a sad mess of 



82 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

it. "It's terribl man," he would interject in a whispeiv 
"Be more careful; you hav no idea of the horror in front 
of you if you lose." 

After a time we began another scheme that was 
to decide whether my future abode was to be heven or 
hell. I was getting" pretty serious about it. My "frend" 
warned me that I had fallen far short in the previous tests 
and that this was my last chance. "Why," I said, "It is 
ridiculous to stake a man's future on such tests as these. " 
"You hav come to this world before your time and you. 
must submit to the rules. If you fail at this test you fail 
forever." We began. 

I hav often wondered since whether the last "test" was 
to fill me with the dred of being* made clairvoyant in 
the fight to come. No one can hav an idea of the multi- 
tude of snares and discouraging schemes that were woven 
around me weeks and months in advance. 

' ' Open your eyes ! Shut your eyes ! Open your eyes ! 

Shut your eyes!" was the new test, and well I remember 

it. They seemed to open and shut. Perhaps the nervs 
were workt. I do not know. I think so, and my reason 
will appear in another place, for my eyelids were workt 
for several minutes later on in spite of a hard fight 
against it. 

If I did as I was told things remained even. If I was; 
trapt by a trick and shut them when I was told to open 
them I lost one point. If I caught the trap in time Satan i 
lost two. It was a case of "Simon says thumbs up, Simon \ 
says thumbs down. " "He's gaining, "he said often. "Am 
I to lose that simpleton after all?" "Don't yott trust him," 
came the warning, " he says that to them all." "Is this 
thing fair?" etc. And the discussion went on as before, 
and I listened. Frolicsome spirits, my frend had called 
them. Possum up a gum tree, my frend ; they mean busi- 
ness. 

It was hard work. I felt completely exhausted when. 



THE TRAP IS SPRUNG BY DEMONS. 83 

the winking came to an end. "Wear very sorry," said 
my "frendly" voice. "We hav done our best for you, but 
you hav lost. He will give you one more chance. It is 
called taking the devil's mercy. It is to do as littl as you 
can for him. Do nothing unless he compels you. The 
life will soon kill you anyway. We tried our best and yet 
you failed. I tried everything to get you mad against 
him" — and he did — "but you kept on thinking he was 
you frend. He deceives them aH that way. He is our 
dedly enemy, but you kept on smiling while the rest of us 
were horror struck. Do the best you can to make terms 
with him. If he tortures you, and he is savage, we shall be 
near you and suffer as much :ts you do. We never saw 
one wors prepared for the struggl. " I remember the 
chilling effect of that last sentence. You may smile, but 
I did not — that is, not just then. 

"Oh, ho, Sancho, and so you ar caught at last?" rose 
the other voice. " Well, we ar going to tear you to pieces. 
You hav caused us too much troubl. Or, let me see. You 
thot I was your frend, did you, when you were lafing and 
sympathizing with me? You thot I was rather an ill-used 
kind of a being? Now I don't like that half so much as 
you imagin. But we'll let it pass. I don't want to be 
hard upon you. You can go to South America or Africa 
and do my work there where you ar not known. It is all 
the same to me, so that hell is raised all over the world. 
Go to Asia if you like, to Tibet among your f rends. Hang 
it, man, go anywhere! You ar not a bad fellow. In 
spite of them doing their best to make you hate me you 
had a sneaking kindness for me. You will come out all 
right in my service." 

How do I remember? Only two well, and a great deal 
of it word for word. I found out afterwards how easily 
my sympathy was manufactured. If I did not become 
angry, and I tried hard enuf to do it in the trance, it was 
because some power held me in control. Your nervous 



84 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

system can be injured in a trance as easily as when 
awake. 

It is a foolish thing to allow yourself to become hypno- 
tized; something too that I hav always been surprised 
at in others, and yet there I was hypnotized myself. I 
had sot for the occult world as for hidden tresure, and 
I had found it. 

" Now," continued the voice while I still remained in 
the- trance, "stretch yourself out in bed and I will come 
in a few minutes and tear you to pieces. You fool, you 
will hav all the torture but no one will see any difference 
in the morning. We don't manage things that way in the 
occult. We hav ways and means of settling all such mat- 
ters so that nothing is known to outsiders." 

I did as I was told, and lay there with my arms 
stretcht out, the one touching the wall and the other at 
the front of the bed, expecting the agony to begin every 
second, when suddenly I came to myself and jumpt on the 
floor. 

"What on erth does this night's work mean?" I askt 
myself. "It just means, Mr. Quixote," came a calm, im- 
pressiv voice out of the darkness from the corner of the 
room, "that we hav won the game, and that you ar caught 
now. Now, sir," — for he was very polite at first, — "just 
stand there where you ar on one foot till you get permis- 
sion to change. You ar going into training." 

"I hav been angry at it often since, but I thot that the 
game was really up — I actually believd that I was at their 
mercy. I think from what I hav come thru since that I 
could hav refused. In fact, I am almost sure, but the 
doctors will tell you differently, and I am half -inclined to 
bow to their judgment here. It was a case of partial 
possession. 

So I stood there as I was told till I thot my leg would 
break, but as soon as I made an effort to put the other one 
to the floor the order came sharply to do what I was told,. 



THE TRAP IS SPRUNG BY DEMONS 85 

and keep the proper attitude. It was cruel to bear. I 
know what the word tyranny means. I hav often said, 
"Had I not been taken by surprise, " and so on, and so on. 
The truth of the matter was that I had been in that trance 
for several hours with the brain working stedily without 
any relief, and they awoke me when the proper time came. 

Then there was a change. They told me to sing. I 
knew at once why this order was given. It was to bring 
Mr. and Mrs. B. to the room, but I started with my hole 
soul revolting at it. I did not want to awaken them, and 
made as littl noise as possibl, but it would not work. I 
was told that it would not do, and I had to sing louder and 
bring them to the room. 

I stood there with my eyes glaring in my hed, I hav 
been told since, and as soon as they came to the door I 
was told to spring on Mr. B. and overpower him, and 
again I obeyed. We struggld for a time, and altho he is 
far more powerful than I, and I was weak at the time, I 
nearly got the better of him. The thot came to him like 
a flash to get out of the room and lock the door, and he 
caught hold of me and with an effort threw me on the 
bed and escaped, I remember that during the hole 
struggl altho I believd I had to fight with him I was 
anxious that he should master me. 

Then the order came to break in the door, and I began 
and smasht it in with a chair and wrencht it open, how 
I do not know to this day, for I hav seen the bent lock 
since. That was one of the w r orst attacks I had during 
the hole time the fight lasted. I was passionately anxious 
to do just what they told me at this time. It seemed that 
before Mr. B. came to the room and after he left the feel- 
ing was strongest. I hav often wondered since whether 
they eased up the pressure just when he came in and 
during the struggl in order to make me feel wors over it 
afterwards. I think I could hav refused to obey their 
orders at that time as I 'did later, but I am afraid that if 



8<5 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

I had the pressure would hav been put on. However, I 
was more than thankful at the outcome. 

I went down stairs and found the house deserted, 
obeyed another order to put the Bible in the stove — they 
do not luv that book — and then came to myself, and 
walkt up stairs, thinking I was a ruined man. 

"Give up Christianity at once and become a medium or 
go to an insane asylum and die in three months." 

"I will not give up Christianity," I replied. "You can 
do your worst." I believd the hole business, and felt as 
if the end of the days had come for me. This, then, was 
the end of it all! I had landed in a bog of accursed dia- 
bolism insted of in the celestial regions. 

I had told Mr. B. that if anything happened to me to 
take means at once to put me in a safe place, and he soon 
returned with help. I was as quiet as ever I hav been 
in my life by this time, and made some arrangements to 
go with the men, perfectly well pleased to go, for I knew 
that it was time. From the time Mr. B. came to the room 
till I broke out of it, I do not think that more than a 
quarter of an hour had elapst. Four months of prepara- 
tion and a bad quarter of an hour to end it. 

I stayed that day garded in a small room, and if hell 
itself is any wors than that place was for me I would 
caution anyone who may read this against going there. 
You read a short paragraf and you try to imagin what it 
means, but a few words describe a day's torture. It went 
on from ten to twelve hours that day without a minute's rest. 
Erthly tyranny is bad, but it is mercy compared to what 
meets those who ar caught as I was. You cannot escape. 
"And hav you met the spirits yet, Sancho? What do you 
think of them? Do you really imagin we work for ples- 
ure? It is business with us from the word go." They 
used slang enuf to satisfy anyone, and the foul language 
and cursing were sickening. 

"Try your Christianity now you fool! You prayed to 



THE TRAP IS SPRUNG BY DEMONS. 87 

be garded last night. Why did He not save you? Just be- 
cause He could not. That was the reason. Ah, yes, my 
son, we will make you disbeliev in yourself, in your God, 
in everything until you go completely raving mad." 

Small sparks of fire about the size of a pin's head shot 
before my eyes all day. I saw them for months after- 
wards, but at first they were not plesant to look at when I 
knew what was behind them. I had gazed so hard at a 
piece of paper during my "training" that I had seen it 
covered as with a thousand littl sparks. That cost troubl. 
Now they came without exertion. Real? Wait until we 
get to delirium tremens, and we may talk about it. Not 
that I hav ever had them myself. One thing that helpt me 
when the waters were flowing over my soul was the fact 
that during my hole life I hav been a strict abstainer from 
all kinds of intoxicating liquors. But that's another story. 

"There, we've caught him again in the eye. Once, 
twice, thrice ! Caught again, my boy. Too bad, really, 
but you see that is our business — we trap fools." Yes, and 
fools who read this ar trapt in other ways, and some of 
them stand in plupits and preach peace to fashionabls 
while children starv and die like rotten sheep. But again 
we digress and become impolite. 

I tried hard to follow a plan that did me good service 
afterwards. That was to keep my mind as far as possibl 
on some other subject, to sing quietly to myself, to talk, 
to do anything to avoid listening, but I was not strong 
enuf for it and did not become strong enuf for months. 
You can try the experiment. Hav some one yell at you 
and see if you can avoid listening to voo. 

But the longest day passes minute by minute, and when 
night came I found that another home had been made 
redy for me. Two doctors had chatted with me for a short 
time, listened to the evidence, and as I found out after- 
wards had adjudged me insane. An attendant was sent for 
me, and I walkt quietly to the station with him and soon 



88 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

found myself on the way to what I thot was a sanita- 
rium. 

"Go out that door," they yeld as I left the room where 
I had been confined, "and we will tear you to pieces be- 
fore you cross the threshold." 

This thret was not altogether unplesant. I was rather 
weary o' the sun like Macbeth, and if they had done 
what they thretened I would not hav been sorry. 

I was in the train for about two hours, but I had a legion 
with me. From the starting point to the end of our jour- 
ney they yeld and curst at me high above the noise of the 
train. The vibration had such an effect upon the atmos- 
fere, that they were abl to come close to me, just as if 
on the outside of the car windows, and as their means of 
locomotion ar evidently as good as ours they kept me 
close company. 

Hav you ever past thru any experience in the cours of 
your life when you felt that somehow or other you knew 
what was going to happen next? When you felt on seeing 
a certain object that you had seen it before altho you had 
never past that particular place? Hav you ever known 
what was coming on the next page of a book you were 
reading? Many cases of this kind hav been narrated and 
they ar very interesting. 

This was how I felt on my journey to the asylum. I had 
never been on that railroad, but I knew it. I knew what 
was coming next, and I felt as if every step was plain to 
me before I went forward. 

And they laft in the window and shouted, — "Poor fool, 
Sancho! Poor fool! Don't you see at last that you ar so 
hypnotized that you believ anything we want you to? 
Don't you see that we make you believ you hav past this 
way before? And don't you see, too, that you ar in our 
power? Does this not make it plain? 

I had many such experiences afterwards, and suffered 
a great deal thru believing things that in my inmost hart 



THE TRAP IS SPRUNG BY DEMONS. '£8 

I could not agree with at all. We ar all, I believ, more 
or less susceptibl to the influences around us, and if you 
hav ever had any experiences of the nature spoken of you 
hav been to a slight extent under the influence of your 
frolicsome frends. A hevy supper will sometimes help 
you along the way, for it is as much of a sin to over-eat 
as to fast. But there is no danger, so do not be alarmed. 
The delicate machine we* walk around in is fairly well 
taken care of if we ar not too foolish. 

We reacht our destination in due time, and I felt better 
before I got inside the reception hall. On the way from 
the depot the choir invisibl started with the softening old 
melodies and calmed me. There has been a long debate 
going on about this singing between the hosts that con- 
tend inside of us. "It was all done by us," said the de- 
mons, "from beginning to end. It was to keep you list- 
ening." The other voice, — a silent one this time, said, 
"By their fruits ye shall know them. Were you en- 
couraged on the way from the depot by that singing? Do 
you think your enemies would encourage you? " Let the 
reader judge. 

I met Dr. Bolus, the hed engineer of the establish- 
ment. I shall again anticipate a littl by saying that he 
did alia man could be expected to do for me during the 
last months of my stay under his care, and made himself 
agreeabl and in this he showed a forgiving spirit for I 
had at first refused to swallow his mixtures, and very few 
doctors can endure that. Now I know that it was fool- 
ish, but my back was up 

My first interview was a littl discouraging tho. "Puf- 
fing in the ear? Hum, bad case this time evidently. 
Lying in bed developing? Eh? What did you do that 
for? " and I found it a poser. Ar you supposed to lay 
your cherished dreams before the faculty? "You hav 
been hearing voices? Why, there ar no voices!" This 
settld it with me. I had put my hed in the lion's mouth. 
No voices, indeed ! 



8S OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

I had receivd my training with respect to voices in one 
school and the doctor in another, and we had met at last. 
"I know what your science will amount to," I said to my- 
self as I left him, "I want none of your drugs," which 
was foolish. 

The doctor sent me to the best ward and I lay down to 
sleep in a dormitory containing more than a hundred men, 
and I thot it was a queer kind of a sanitarium. 

Chapter thirteen, you see, has been the unlucky chapter. 
I found that chapter twelv was too long judging from my 
shorthand notes, and what I had added as I went along, 
:and I concluded to cut it in two. To my surpise I found 
that the unlucky number told the evil story that matcht 
it. I hav never believd in these littl superstitions, but 
if you do I would suggest that you sleep to-night with 
your hed below the bed clothes. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
Inside a Lunatic Asylum. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage • 
Minds innocent and quiet 
Take that for an hermitage." 

Very nice indeed, Sir Richard, and very true. One of 
the finest lyrics in our tung with Althea whispering there 
.at the grates, but suppose your mind is neither quiet nor 
innocent, what then? 

The first day in the hermitage there was no rest, for the 
voices kept me busy listening to them. I tried reading 
but it was of littl use. During my noviciate I had red some- 
where that when a man became acquainted with the 
higher intelligences he could dispens with books, and 



INSIDE A LUNATIC ASYLUM. 89 

they reminded me of this often ennf for many a long 
day. 

"Ar you going back to the books like a dog to his vomit 
and like the sow that was washt to wallow in the mire? 
Why, the hole thing is preposterous. It will never do. 
You ar now in a position, you know, to dispens with a 
good many of the silly books you hav been reading and 
confine your attention to us. Yes, my dear sir, if you 
could concentrate your mind on what you ar reading it 
would be all right, but you cannot, becaus we will not 
allow you. Ah, determined to fight, ar you? Poor littl 
child !" 

And we began the duel that lasted for longer than I 
like to think about. I red and tried hard to keep my 
mind on the subject ; they red the same words, and tried 
hard to get my mind on their voices, and do the best I 
could they succeeded. Before I knew how it was managed 
I was listening to them and merely looking at the book. 
It had been plesant to read with them that way before I 
knew that they were after the possession of my mind to 
use me as they use others whom they hav captured, but 
now I understood the plan too well to be at ease. If I fot 
hard to keep my attention fixt the voices would come 
close to me, then go away for a distance of a quarter of a 
mile, joke, laf, and in a dozen different ways interest me 
till they gained their point. It came to be very plesant to 
listen to them, too. It was so easy compared with strug- 
gling that I often yielded, and let them hav their way. 
This was against my will, but they had the power of pull- 
ing the strings to a larger extent than any one would be- 
liev who has not fot them. 

They stopt their foul language and blasfeming and tried 
another and more interesting scheme. All sorts of ques- 
tions that I was interested in were discust — politics, social 
questions, literature, French, Spanish or anything els, 
and they went from one subject to another and discust 



90 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIIONS. 

them all in such a way that I could not help being inter- 
ested — could not help listening. But when I had settld 
down to listen and enjoy it, a change would come and my 
ear would be over the mouth of the pit once more. Then 
I tried to escape with the usual result. 

"You ar bot with a price and you cannot get away. Ah, 
if you could only escape and tell the result of your jour- 
ney it would be really nice would it not? Well, you will 
not escape." 

If I tried a game of any kind it was the same, "Ah, 
you ass, you mist that shot. What do you mean by dis- 
gracing us in that way. Don't you know that you ar our 
ambassador. Not quite so fast and a lit tl more to the left. " 

And so it went on day after day till I would lie down in 
sheer desperation and try to get relief. If you hav an 
adversary on erth there is some equality between you : 
here the hole state of my mind was open to them, and not 
only that, but they poured in any kind of a feeling they 
pleased. Whenever they wanted me to suffer, I suffered ; 
and I often had to laf in spite of myself, but it was of no 
use lying down. "Not a cursed minute, sir. Get up at 
once. No? Inclined to be stubborn? We hav put a good 
many of that sort thru the mill. Too many to stick at you. " 

Then the floodgates of profanity would open right be- 
low my ear, and I could not endure it. I lay down in des- 
peration, and rose up in desperation. 

"Just curse God and die, Sancho Quixote, that's your 
only plan. But it looks strange to us why He lets you suf- 
fer. And your Savior too. Hav they deserted you?" And 
then arose the mocking wail I hav herd too often. "My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

No spirits, they say : no obsession, no possesion, no devil, 
no anything. Just so. I hav since my school days at least, 
kept my mouth clean of profanity or foul language, and I 
was glad of it then, but it was all the harder to bear. 

"Stop your hypocritical whining. You hav listened to 



INSIDE A LUNATIC ASYLUM. 91 

just such language on erth like the rest of your Christian 
brethern, and you hav taken but littl pains to stop it. 
Now when you hear us curse you pretend to be shocked. " 

But by this time I had a good deal of encouragment 
from frendly voices. It was hard to distinguish the voices, 
for cursing and blessing would come in the same tone. I 
had to judge by the sentiment, and not by the sound. I 
wrote several letters to dictation and was urged to send 
them to the newspapers for publication. I hesitated and 
was solemely warned what w r ould come of me if I did not 
obey orders. My frends would leav me, the sky would 
fall, I wrould go mad, and so on. But with the exception 
of one or two letters, sent to frends who took care of them, 
I tore up whatever I had writn. 

They, like some erthly spirits, went too far even for me 
in that state. 

Under such and such contingencies the world was to be 
destroyed with fire and brimstone and horrors unmention- 
abl, and that was garnishing the beutious eye of heven just 
a littl too much even for a man under hypnotism. 

It will but confirm the medical experts in their opinions 
when I say that hypnotized as I was I could not be de- 
ceivd with respect to any subject with which I was well 
acquainted. That is, my troubls came from things we 
cannot know — questions relating to the future world, or 
anything of that description. I could hav attended to 
business or discust any subject with which I was acquaint- 
ed in my usual manner. Our hypnotic frends may not 
believ this, as a good many of them hav the idea that a 
subject can be influenct in any given direction, but I 
know that this was not the case with me. It may hav been 
becaus I hav few opinions, say on social questions, that 
I hav not carefully weighed and once I accept any theory 
I like to hang on to it till deth do us part, unless I see 
good reason for changing my opinion. They did their 
best for months to shake my views on certain subjects, but 



92 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

they did not succeed, and with the new light I havreceivd 
these opinions ar stronger than ever to-day. At the worst 
I came only so far as to say, "Is it possibl that I am mis- 
taken? I cannot believ it. " But they carried me a long 
distance when they got me to even consider the possibil- 
ity of a mistake on the particular subject they harpt on. 

They succeeded in making me believ, however, that I 
was going to receiv some special revelation that was to 
do a wonderful amount of good. It must be remembered 
that the voices which promist me the revelation were to 
the last degree frendly in tone — so frendly that the one 
warning voice which told me on the back of the promis- 
that there was no revelation for me past by almost un- 
heeded. At this distance it looks to me that they were 
both my enemies. But I thot too, of Mahomet and Joan 
of Arc. She certainly herd voices. Where did they come 
from? Mahomet certainly herd them. Where did his come 
from? I know now where his voices came from. They 
came from the evil powers who rage around us. I look up- 
on these matters differently now that I believ in Christi- 
anity. The result of Mahomet's inspiration was the Kor- 
an as ' 'our Bible, " as the demons called it often. And mak- 
ing every due allowance for the splendid work the Sara- 
sens accomplisht that puts us to shame in many ways, the 
result of the Koran is a religion opposed to Christianity. 
Its latest triumf is the Armenian massacres. The Koran 
or the sword is an old cry. 

Joseph Smith was a dreamer too, they say. He drew 
his inspiration from the wrong source as well as Mahomet. 
Poligamy is downed now, but what do you think of it as a 
scheme to disrupt this continent? Satan is no fool. He 
waited for six hundred years after Christ's time for Ma- 
homet, but we know the result. The social system of 
Utah with respect to land ownership came very nearly 
making it a paradise for the starvd workers of the east, 
and of Europe. Those who think this is carrying it toa 



INSIDE A LUNATIC ASYLUM 93 

far, may hav their eyes opend if they will read an articl 
writn for the New York Herald by the late Colonel Cock- 
rell when on his way to Japan. I think it was Brigham 
Young he spoke of as one of the three greatest men that 
America has produced. Again, I repeat, that if churches 
ar blinded to the social iniquities Satan is no fool. Inspir- 
ation comes from him every day in the year, but some- 
times he makes a bold play for success. But I am again 
making this a sort of a olla podrida of an narrativ. 

A few days after I reacht the hermitage the writing on 
the brain began again and continued for several hours. 
My attention was distracted by a good many things around 
me, of cours, and the crisis did not come so soon as when 
I had the trance, but if came soon enuf to suit me — and 
others. I walkt the floor in astonishment that day. The 
matter they poured thru me was marvelous. They made 
me believ that good and bad were being poured on my 
b>rain, that it would all come back to me afterwards, and 
that my task would be to separate the chaff from the wheat. 
It was interesting beyond mesure, but I did not suspect 
that they were overworking my brain to precipitate a crisis. 
I was amazed at the subtlty of their reasoning. Our logic 
choppers ar not to be compared to them for keen-eyed 
; subtil ty. They corner a man with their arguments before 
he knows where he is. 

I took out my pencil. And as I used to be a reasonably 
:fast shorthand writer I tried to take down some of their 
arguments, but it was of no use. Their object would not 
hav been attained if they had allowed me to get my at- 
tention on my notes insted of on them, and the words 
^poured on me with the rapidity of lightning. 

Shortly after this, whether the same day or the one after 
I do not recollect, I was seated at dinner in a large dining- 
Toom, and according to what seems to be unimpeachabl 
testimony I placed my chair on the tabl. Now, I am not 
a member of the Four Hundred— I am a Sancho from 



94 OUR VN5KKN COMPANIONS. 

away back and will remain one, but I know very well that 
a dining tabl is not the place for a chair. It is not com me 
il fant to put it there. I remember all that happened to 
me from the beginning of my troubl to the end, excepton 
that occasion. I do not hav even the slightest recollec- 
tion of the naive littl incident. It may hav happened — 
I do not like to be too obstinate, and I hav always ac- 
cepted the statement of the eyewitnesses, but it is a blank 
to me. I say again that it was possession, and I say fur- 
thermore that the alienist, celebrated or unknown, who 
refuses to accept this theory does not know his business. 

I was conveyed back to the hall, and I came to con- 
sciousness and began to kick the shins of the attendants 
in keeping with instructions I herd from below. This 
was not only a crime — it was a blunder, for they began to 
kick back. After some littl skirmishing they got me 
down upon the floor, and a muscular gentlman put his 
fingers around my throat and squeezed hard. Now, I had 
never studied fisiology, but from certain indications I 
knew that grasp would make an end of Sancho Quixote in 
a very short time. His throat was dry and he could not 
get breth, an,d that is not at all agreeabl under any circum- 
stances. My unseen companions were around me too. I, 
like cousin Hamlet, was the observed of all observers, but 
not quite the mold of fashion and the glass of form. They 
were literally choking the devil out of me, but it lookt as if 
there would be nothing left when they finisht. There 
were four of them, I think, and they might hav managed 
the thing in a more professional way, but they soon be- 
came possesst as well as myself, and the gentlman who 
squeezed went at it, as Plato says, for all he was worth. 
Often as I go along writing a whiff of the same feeling 
comes over me that I experienct on certain occasions, and 
I remember now that scene, I hav not thot of for months. 
Most of them ar good fellows, as I found out afterwards, 
and they ar pleased to see you get well, but there is room 






INSIDE A LUNATIC ASULYM, 95 

for some improvement in their manners. A slight dash 
of Vere de Vere blood would be of advantage. 

I was taken down stairs to another ward and f ot all the 
way down — not with much success, for my hart was not 
in it, and the hart, in Longfellow's frase, giveth grace to 
every art. I thot I had to fight. I followed my instruc- 
tions with hate in my hart for the hole business. I tried 
hard to miss the leg of the man I was told to kick, and 
the voice came thundering to attend to business. Some- 
thing curious happened to me just before I entered the 
new hall. A voice said to me quietly as I was going in, 
— "Do not obey him any more than you have to." But 
I was too excited to understand what was ment. 

I went on fighting and otherwise making a fool of my- 
self, altho I could hav cried for sheer vexation. I was 
perfectly conscious of it all and went on till I could hav 
fallen to the floor with weariness. Then the order came 
again to strike some of the men. I was too tired, I was 
desperate. "Do your worst," I thot, and I refused, and 
then that tyrannical voice that I would know among 
a thousand to-day stormed at me, but it was too late. 
The threts poured out like a flood, but I sat still and that 
ended all danger to others from me. 

I was told often enuf afterwards to strike men around 
me, but it was well enuf understood on my side and on 
theirs that the game was up. They made a joke of it 
then. The doctor would ask sometimes, "What do they 
say to you? " a leading question that always set me smil- 
ing to myself as it does yet. Now, it often happened that 
just before he came forward they would say impressivly, 
"Sancho, strike that man by your side so that when 
your frend asks you what we say you will hav something 
to tell him. " They do not hav a very high opinion of the 
medical faculty. They know just about what some of 
their theories on insanity ar worth. Possession, my f rends, 
possession, that is where a good deal of your "insanity* 



OUR UNSEEN COM PAN I IONS. 

comes from, A physical troubl, certainly, but evil spirits 
take advantage of it. It is sad to] think that we ar 
further back than the Jews were in the time of Christ, so 
far as the reason for a great deal of mental derangement 
is concerned. 

From this day on, then, there was no danger to others : 
I know, whatever the authorities may say. I hav spoken 
of the only two instances in which I would hav harmed 
those who were near me, in order that the case may be 
stated plainly. I was rather surprised and hurt afterwards 
that I should hav lost control over myself, but there ar 
the facts. 

No danger to others, but a good deal to myself. The 
attendants had kept.me from seriously injuring myself at 
the worst crisis, but after they saw me quietened down 
and seated they left me alone. But the demons did not. 
I was seated behind a wood partition out of the attend- 
ants' sight when the order came again to begin work not 
against others but against myself. It seems strange that 
I did not refuse, but there was another element added to 
the fight — I was now savagely anxious to do what they 
told me. Anything is better than this suspens, I thot. 
They were pouring the horrors of the future on me in 
such a way that I thot it would be a relief to know ■ the 
■worst, and unseen by the attendants I began and con- 
tinued till I was faint with agony. "It has been done 
before and it can be done again. Go on! " But I had to 
give it up thru exhaustion. I sat down, and was uncon- 
scious for about half an hour. I did not feel the slight- 
est pain when I awoke ; I hav not to this day, and yet 
under normal circumstances I would hav been perma- 
nently injured. 

"Whatever happens to you," I had been told by a 
frendly voice shortly after my troubls began, "will be 
made all right." The days of miracls, we ar told, ar 
over, but that incident has always remained as something 
very mysterious to me. 



INSIDE A LUNATIC ASYLUM. 97 

As I am on an tmplesant subject, I may as well finish 
it by saying that this was not the only time I would hav 
been glad to go and see what was in store for me. I hav 
always held it to be to the last degree impolite to go be- 
fore you get permission — as cowardly as it is foolish. 
Bad as it can be here, I hold that we hav no right to leav 
our position to go elswhere when we ar not wanted by 
those who seek our best good. "The gift we least desire, 
the unwelcome gift of life," I herd a patient speak of in 
a recitation during the winter. I hav never found it to 
be such. Plenty of suffering, but you come out of it 
stronger than when you went in, and not quite so foolish. 
Take it all thru I consider that only a madman will ask if 
life is worth living. It is a glory to liv. It is glorious 
to know that you ar a conscious part of an immens uni- 
vers, suffer as you may. Of cours, there ar plenty who^ 
find this erth a kind of a hell thru no fault of their own, 
and if there is one thing more than another to make a 
man rage it is the swinishness that is crushing down the 
weak to-day as if they did not belong to the same species, 
but that is off the question. I mean then, to say, that I 
hav enjoyed life, that I now enjoy it, and that the best 
thing to do is just to grin and bear your troubls as well as 
you can, to envy no man or woman, resting assured that 
all hav, like the old man, lots of troubl on their minds. 
If you get really hungry, and can't get work, perhaps it 
is right to do as Cardinal Manning said, put forth your 
hand and take bred. Property — sacred property — should 
not be considered when men starv. But I ment to keep 
that for another occasion. 

For about two months then, on a few occasions only- 
when the torture was at the worst I fear that if I had 
been in a position to carry out my wishes you would never 
hav red this book. An intens longing came to me that 
was almost unbearabl just to end it all. Perhaps I could 
hav resisted it if I had been at liberty, but I am not cer- 



9$ OUR UNSEKN COMPANIONS. 

tain, and the troubl is that once done there is no repair- 
ing the damage. I knew it was my enemies who put the 
desire there, but still once in a while it would come and 
it was very strong. I now understand the verdict of tem- 
porary insanity. I would amend it slightly tho. I would 
make it — "Died while his mind was in the possession of 
evil spirits. " 

How did it come about, too, that I never felt the 
slightest desire to injure myself before I was in a place 
where I could not do it? It never once crost my mind, 
and I had one outbreak before I went to the hermitage. 
It was not suggested to me either by the evil spirits. 
Gould it be that they were not allowed? "You ar ment 
to do something when you become well," I was often 
told. Could it be that I was ment to open men's eyes as 
mine hav been opend? I smiled in a kind of derision 
when I was told so sometimes, and again I would believ it 
but incredibl as it seemed then you ar now reading my 
story. "Another man with a mission," you say. Pre- 
cisely. I understand the age we liv in fairly well. 

A few days ago I met an old frend and he told me of a 
case where a man had walkt forward to the brow of a 
precipice and had to run away from it, there was such a 
strong desire sprung up in him to roll over the edge. 
Who put that desire there? I know. He told me of an- 
other case of the same nature. A woman was sitting be- 
fore a fire with her child in her arms and she had to fight 
and run away from the strong temptation to throw the 
child among the flames. Again I ask you if you remem- 
ber the saying about your adversaries, — "Not flesh and 
blood, but principalities and powers? " They use flesh 
and blood tho as their instruments. 

When I awoke from the unconscious condition — not a 
trance this time — the shouting began, "Where hav you 
been for the last hour? " and wonderful stories were told 
me of where I had been and what I had done. They 



INSIDE A LUNATIC ASYLUM 99 

would charm some of our occult frends, but they were all 
bottled moonshine, like the belief that is based on such 
nonsens. 

That afternoon I saw something float past me in black 
drapery. I saw the picture of a frend on the wall before 
me as plainly as I hav seen it in his books. Optical illu- 
sions? Perhaps not. 

Some ten or twelv years ago I herd George Francis 
Train lecture. He stopt in the middle of his lecture and 
said, — "Well, how do you like it as far as you hav got? " 
That is what I feel inclined to ask the reader. 

Suppose it had been in a novel now, the reviewers 
would hav jeered, 



CHAPTER XV. 
Luv and Hate. 

The campaign opend now in ernest. There were no 
Taore outbreaks, it was a question of endurance, undera 
persecution that never ceast for a minute. 

"We hav driven you from the best hall to one of the 
worst, and even a fool can understand what that means. 
The three months will soon be over and then you go out 
in your coffin. Yes, we know that is what you would 
like" — for the thot came to me then that it would be ples- 
ant to see the coffin at once insted of waiting so long for 
it — "We put that thot into your hed, and we put it into 
the heds of others too. It has been a fair fight has it not? 
We ar not on your side, but we hav captured you. We 
do not strike at you, but at others whom you do not see, 



lOO OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

but who suffer, my boy, who suffer, to see you caught. 
There is no help for you. " 

Their hole endevor was to irritate me, to make me 
jump, to thump on the tabl, to behave like a madman, but 
during the whole long struggl they succeeded only twice, 
and then only for two or three minutes. Without help I 
could never hav endured the siege. Left with full power 
over a man they could drive him mad in two minutes. I 
know what I am writing about. 

* ' You hav red a great many books like the other fools 
on erth. Did any of them tell you how to get out of your 
present troubl?" One of them had told me to keep away 
from it, but I was wise when it was too late. 

4 'Take the wings of the morning and we will follow 
you. Get yourself enclosed in a burglar proof safe and we 
will talk to you." And the blasfemy began, and I felt as 
they wanted me to feel about it — simply horrified. 

If there was anything I admired it was trampld under 
foot ; if I thot of anyone with respect the torrent began. 
"Do you know that we enjoy it, Sancho? Do-you-know- 
that-we-luv-to-torture-you. " And as my hart would some- 
times fail when I realized the dedly struggl before me, 
inch by inch, hour after hour they shouted " — Yes, curse 
you, we know how you feel and we ar glad of it." There 
was no rest when we were out walking either. One day 
it was one subject, the next another. I remember the yell 
that greeted me once — "He is the supreme tyrant! He is 
the supreme tyrant! Why does he not take us out of our 
misery?" I felt then as I hav often done since that I had 
commited a serious mistake. It horrified me to listen to 
them, to know that sometimes in spite of their high-sound- 
ing words they were in misery, and I knew that I had no 
right to be there listening to them. 

But where had I herd that frase Supreme tyrant? Ah, 
yes. Bishop Spalding wrote an articl some years ago in 
which, speaking of social questions and of the attitude too 



LUV AND HATE. IOI 

many were holding towards the future world he said — 
"God is solemnly called the Supreme tyrant." 

"Why does he not put us out of our misery then?" As 
soon as I instinctivly protested against their assertion this 
question was shouted at me. 

"Why does he not yield then. " There it is. That was 
what they askt me. 

We ar not so frank about it, but we practically ask the 
same question oftener than we think. Why does He not 
change His plan, and adopt ours? 

Some one has said that the difference between the re- 
ligion of the first century and ours is that then one sermon 
converted three thousand men, while now it takes three 
thousand sermons to convert one man. They believd in 
what they were preaching, and now some of them don't 
think that there is a hell. 

The frendly voices helpt me considerably. If there was 
-only one side why should they hav encouraged me and 
tried to drag me down at the same time? They cheered 
me up and told me that I would come out of the struggl 
.and liv my life w r ith clearer lights in the future. 

"Concentrate your mind," they said, "concentrate and 
keep at it. Interest yourself in something. Go around 
among these men and speak to them. Never mind how 
these spirits jeer at you. Keep going and you will grad- 
ually get better. It will not make any difference where 
3'ou go.* You will hav to fight it out, but we will help you. " 
And when things were getting unendurabl they sung to 
me till I got uplifted and redy for another bout. 

But now I herd another kind of singing that I thot would 
hav driven me mad — for as you may hav alredy remarkt 
I am proceeding on the assumption that I was a sane man 
then. I met many of that kind in the hermitage. I was 
at least, sane enuf to write the kind of literature you hav 
been reading since you began this book. 

The new singing was rauque, fearful, past endurance. 



T02 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Very often when the other kind began to soothe me this 
started too, and murdered the harmony. It was all done 
from beginning to end with the idea of destroying the poor 
mortal w r ho was in their clutches. I cannot describe the 
bitter regret that filled my hart then. Would that I had 
never been a fool! A wail as old as the world. 

I often thot to myself as the incredibl persecution went 
on, — "If they take all this troubl to destroy me, only one 
soul, they must be desperately in ernest. " It is true. 
The devil is an enthusiast, and we loll in fashionabl 
churches, and gather millions and starv children, and do 
his work in his own chosen way. 

A great many times during this severe ordeal I felt 
utterly defeated and did not care what became of me. 
Perhaps a dozen times in all during several months, the 
hole thing stopt for a few minutes as if by command and 
I was very grateful for the short respite. "Do you know 
that we can stop it whenever we pleas ?" a quiet voice 
sometimes askt me then. 

One day the writing on the brain began again and went 
on so fast that I could scarcely follow J it. I hav alredy 
spoken of peopl whose past life has been flasht before 
them in a few minutes. A great deal of my past was 
laid open to me, but there was not so very much plesure 
in looking back over it, for it was mostly the unplesant 
side. Who opend the drawers of memory? An excited 
brain? Imagination? Things that I had done and for- 
gotten a quarter of a century ago came back one by one 
to the accompaniment of the jibes of my enemies. 

Some bright littl men wonder how the recording angel 
is going to keep a strict account of their sins. Do not be 
alarmed about any of them being forgotten, if you take 
the evolutionary future. God's ways ar not as our w T ays. 

Mr. Moody says in one of his sermons that he believs 
that every man will -stand speechless before God. He 
thinks the record is within us, and I think that he is. 



LUV AND HATE. I 03 

right. It is all there. Everything we hay said, felt, 
herd or suffered. 

I understand now as I never did before what Christ 
ment when He said that we would be accountabl for every 
word spoken by us. The result we carry with us. There 
is a good deal of truth in a certain kind of evolution. 

The books will not need to be opend in the literal sens. 
All is taken care of, and if you get in the wrong com- 
pany you w T ill find that what has been done in secret will 
be shouted on the housetops. I hav herd my sins laid 
bare one after another. I know what it means. It made 
me writhe occasionally, but there was no mercy. What 
fools we ar to suppose that anything can be hidden ! 
Memory will be hell enuf to a good many of us, if we in- 
sist. After I became accustomed to it, I ceast to wonder 
the hole thing lookt so natural. 

The chief abiding place of these evil spirits was the 
dining room. I did not understand the secret for months 
afterwards. Torture a man when he is eating and you 
retard his recovery, and they were at their worst during 
meal hours. Voices of frends and relativs living and ded 
would come, for these spirits take any kind of a voice 
they pleas, and as soon as I sat down they began. After 
they gave me good advice they would begin to curse. 

1 'We cannot help it," they said. "It is the Satanic na- 
ture in us. We ar like you, partly good and partly bad. 
Sometimes the good gets the upper hand, sometimes the 
bad." 

Again I say, possum up a gum tree. It is not a very 
dignified frase but it best expresses my feelings. 

And so our souls really swim around among the ether 
while we sleep? Possum up a gum tree again. I know 
who concocted those pretty ideas. 

Back in his yung days w r hen Sancho Quixote never 
troubld himself about anything if he got enuf to eat, he 
ran across a pretty littl poem compounded in Cyrus times 



104 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIIONS. 

when the primrose was the flower that won all harts. A 
thotless member of parlament was responsibl for it. Sir 
Stafford had been telling the assembled wits and dullards 
that Cyprus w as going to be a grand acquisition if for 
nothing els than the gum trees, w r hen the man of the oc- 
casion wrote, — 

" The gum tree rich in leaf and blossom 
Forms the home of the opossum. 
In Cyprus soon wc hope to see 
Northcote safely up that tree. 

That is just another illustration of the wonderful effect 
of one mind over another. But we had enuf of possum 
— in the meantime. 

Before my friend whom I hav never seen came to as- 
sist me, I w r as told he was on the way. Then his picture 
I hav spoken of was flasht on the wall. 

' < I am sitting in my office in the city of Utopia, but 
hav come to help you. I am very busy now, but I came 
at the call of our mutual frends. You will come out of 
the struggl all right. Have no fear." And the picture 
vanisht. The voice I hope to hear one day. I herd it for 
months and know it well. Hypnotism or reality, which 
gave me the picture? Ar you so very sure that it was 
hypnotism? The voices ar real. We .know next to nothing 
of their powers. What of the picture? 

On another occasion I imagind that I saw tw T o frends 
at a distance but I was fooled. When the persons came 
nearer I saw that I had been color blind. This will setl 
the picture with the doctors. 

I never "saw" anything except on these occasions, un- 
less I speak of blue lights, the color of hell I was assured,, 
and they lookt suspicious. 

I hav seen a man on his knees kissing an " imaginary" 
picture on the wall, but he was in ernest about it. Was 
the picture there? I hav seen another man spend most of 
his time looking at plesant pictures thrown on his brain. 
He was hypnotized to a certain extent like the man who- 



LUV AND HATE. 105 

lust the wall. He saw the pictures. I saw many in the 
same way, as you see the house you were born in if you 
choose to think of it, and they ar really plesant to look at, 
but I knew what it ment and did not indulge in it. It is 
done very easily. There is no necessity for shutting your 
eyes, but it means that spirits ar working your brain and 
that is not altogether right, if you can avoid it. A littl 
concentration saves you from this plesant but foolish way 
of spending your time. 

When I saw the poor fellow on the floor kissing the w r all 
they laft and said, "do you see that man, Sancho? Well 
that is your brother. Come, now, no denial, We ar simply 
leading him along another road. " 

When bed-time came I was more than anxious to lie 
down and forget my misery. The only way I found life 
endurabl was to take it day by day, almost hour by hour. 
The future, the future, was the burden of their song. 
Keep peopl worrying over what is going to happen. I herd 
them, you do not, but they worry you in the same way. 
What will happen if the sky falls? 

Lying down to sleep was only one part, however. Some- 
times I had to fight for a coupl hours of before I could get 
peace ; at other times I could not sleep at all. It seems 
all very stupid now, but that unfortunate remark about 
there being no voices made me distrust the doctors and 
insted of telling my troubls I bit my lip and kept my 
mouth shut. A warm bath would hav saved me many a 
night of torture. Nor did I take any medicin for some 
time — I had more confidence in nature — I did not tell of 
want of sleep, I did not belie v the doctors could do me 
much good. After some time I got back sens enuf to be- 
gin to build up the body, that my enemies were trying to 
pulldown. But "No voices!" Every hermitage should 
hav a professional liar. 

And so I lay and listened to the storm of imaginations 
outside the window, and felt miserabl. They— that is the 



ICO OIK UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

imaginations — went on at such a rapid rate as to astound 
me. It sounded like the clatter of a machine. How it 
was done I do not know, but it was done to destroy all 
chance of thinking. I simply had to endure it. It went 
on every night for several months. You read of it in 
a few minutes. It wasterribl. If I awoke for a minute it 
began, and again it was a fight for sleep. Sometimes a 
littl noise would awaken me, a very littl carelessness, talk- 
ing on the part of night watchmen, which goes on oftener 
and louder than doctors imagin, a doctor hammering thru 
the ward in defiance of common sens, and I was in the 
midst of my enemies. 

Sometimes they would go far away, then come back 
again and begin to work hart and soul. They would come 
close to my bed at the worst time and whisper — "Sancho, 
do you know where you ar? Well, we know. You ar in 
hell, and you will never get out. " Perhaps you smile, but 
I did not. It was far too serious. Mockery and bitter- 
ness and hate every night and every morning. If ever 
there was a humbl man on erth I was one then. "What 
an ass!" I said to myself. "What right had I meddling 
with this business?" 

I often lay and wonderd why I should hav to endure it 
all, "Surely," I thot, "fool as I hav been, this is too 
much. " 

"Too bad," they shouted, "that youar in a place where 
you can't kill yourself. Take the leap man, kill yourself 
somehow and come over among us, we ar waiting for you." 

Some nights I herd a loud voice as if in the room next 
to the dormitory shouting as long as I was awake "San- 
cho Quixote, Sancho Quixote, you ar doomed, you ar 
doomed. " I must hav herd my name a thousand times a 
night. Sometimes I herd nothing els for several minutes 
running. On and on the torrent went with a velocity that 
was awful. Yes, I can smile a littl at it now, but not very 
much. They jest at scars who never felt a wound. 



LUV AND HATE. 107 

"Can this be myself," I askt often. "How hav I got 
into such a mess?" 

Many an hour I hav listened to them going on like the 
whirring of a machine. There were two voices, and as 
they had succeeded in getting me to believ that the one 
hypnotized me and the other did not, I strained my ears 
to catch the frendly one and tried hard not to hear the 
other; and as there was just the least shade of difference 
between them I had a weary task. It is needless to say 
that both were trying to drag me further down by over- 
working the brain, and that the slight difference in tone 
was ment to keep me worrying at my failures, for as 
often as not I found that I was listening to the one I did 
not wish to hear. Then, of course, I was reminded of 
it, and askt if I understood the seriousness of my position 
or whether I was going to do my best to assist my ene- 
mies. Perhaps you might have done better, but very 
often the fight. filld me with utter despair. 

I cannot understand how such a rapidity of speech can 
be exercised. It was a marvel to me when I herd it night 
after night, and the more I think of it the stranger it 
seems. We know exceedingly littl of the powers our 
unseen companions possess : — I know far more than I like 
to think about. 

The race question was also toucht upon during our in- 
terviews in the dining room. My companion at the 
tabl for a few days was a burly negro, and I found that 
these evil spirits we do not see would fain try to keep 
up the same bad feeling between the races that the evil 
spirits around us advocate in the newspapers and reviews. 

I am glad to say that my journey into the occult world 
has but confirmed my views on the race question. White 
or black, brown or yellow should be on the same footing, 
according to my views. You fool! You fool! With your 
antiquated ideas. And so you would not like to see the 
negro on the same plane as the white? Do you not know 



ioS 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



t-hat men ar brothers, not theoretically, but as a matter 
of fact? I soon found out that there was no attention 
paid to distinction of color among the inhabitants of the 
world I was in. If some of our jexclusiv f rends had a 
short cours of lessons in that world they would under- 
stand their bearings a littl better. 

4 'There is Alek, Sancho, your brother in black, you 
know. Do you luv him? That is, do you really luv him? 
This is not theory now. You see he is at the same tabl 
as you ar. Why do you not offer him some of that cus- 
tard you ar eating? Is your luv for Alek of the old sel- 
fish kind we know so much about? No custard for Alek? 
Just for Sancho? Perhaps he needs the custard. Do you 
suppose he hears voices? Do you still hear them? 
Be kind to poor Alek, for he is a fool like yourself ; curse 
the hole brood of you." And then the tempest arose. 

"Do you understand that white or black or yellow does 
not make any difference to us? It is a pity that the hole 
race could not be swept away. Who made these men that 
you see there, Sancho? " and the answer was flasht thru 
my mind by telegrafy which was not nearly so plesant as 
when I first felt it in the orchard. "Then why did He 
make them in that shape? They ar our handiwork, ar 
they? What do you think of the hole scheme yourself, 
you whining hypocrit? " As I sat and listened to it per- 
force, I often wondered to myself what we were doing in 
this world. I felt badly enuf over many things, but one 
thing made me smile with satisfaction even at the worst, 
and that was that I had done what I could for years to let 
men see that it was not at all necessary to starv human 
beings as we do now and fill prisons and penitentiaries 
and hermitages, — the natural outcome in too many cases 
of our fiendish greed. Talk about men being possest 
with devils ! The country is full of them. 

This part of the book you hav now red, practically as it 
stands, was writn during my stay in the hermitage. The 



LUV AND HATE. IOa ; 

most of what follows was writn from notes taken there. 
. But when this chapter was completed I folded up my manu- 
script, packed my valise, and said good-by to the place 
where I had lernt a good many strange lessons. 

You think, doubtless, that I was glad to leav it. In one 
sens, yes. But I hav found out that it is a man's mind. 
and not his surroundings altogether that make his world, 
and the last three months of my stay, during which I had 
a parole to walk around the extensiv grounds, that made 
up "my estate " as I came to call it. had been reasonably 
plesant. The last month I look back upon as one of the 
happiest I hav ever spent on erth. Erly summer had 
come, the trees were in bloom and all nature was throb- 
bing with joy, and I lookt upon a picturesque part of the 
world's surface and smiled. 

I had a certain work to do, unplesant in some respects,, 
but I would hav no peace until it was done. Blessed is> 
the man, says Thomas Carlyle, w T ho has found his work- 
Let him seek no other blessedness. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Fiendish Persecution; 

Irritation is not a good thing, but the hole object of 
my tormentors was to irritate me. Had I not been sus- 
tained I could never hav endured the strain. 

This is how Satan works. By some means or other he 
captures your nervs to a certain extent, and you simply 
jump when he or his agents pull the strings. You deny 
this, of cours. There was never as calm a woman as you 



IIO OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

ar. You never become angry unless you hav good reason 
for it, but your neighbor winks when you say so. 

But if to-night, for exampl, you herd the storm around 
you, you might lose your control for a short time. We 
get used to everything in time, the French proverb says. 
But if you herd them at their work and they left you and 
you were sinking back in a delicious sleep and suddenly 
they were tearing at you again, what then? Perfectly 
composed? You lern it after a while, but it is rather try- 
ing at best. 

1 'Concentrate your mind," they would shout to you, 
* 'concentrate, concentrate!'* 6 'You fool, " the other voice 
would come. "You hav no mind to concentrate. You 
hav given it to us to use. Keep away from concentra- 
tion. Remember what came of concentrating on the ceil- 
ing. We want something done now. Both sides ar tired 
of the struggl. You must make up your mind to do one 
thing or another. •' How would you enjoy it? It is a ter- 
ribl thing to fall into a troubl of that kind. 

I concentrated my mind upon a pencil occasionally to 
see what would come of it. I now understand that it was 
not just that kind of concentration that was needed, but 
my opinions changed pretty often in those days, and I was 
more than anxious to try anything that promist relief, but 
the pencil and the stedy gazing very nearly brot about 
the old result. I usually got scared in time and stopt it 
before troubl came. I could not look at anything stedily 
without feeling the troubl begin. I became very shy. 
"What a pity it was that you did not hav some of that 
caution a littl erlier in your career," they shouted. 

They laft often, and it was not plesant. No, it was not 
plesant. It was a sore struggl. I was afraid to "concen- 
trate" and afraid to leav it alone, "Why, man, just get 
yourself into that state for a very short time and we will 
reliev you of all your troubls. " It sounded temptingly. 

I often tried the other and more sensibl plan of keeping 



FIENDISH PERSECUTION. Ill 

my thots as much as I could on any subject that interested 
me, and I might hav understood from the opposition that 
began that I was on the right track; but we don't always 
rise to the occasion. 

On several of my dreary nights I saw something that I 
did not at all like. One of the men would suddenly rise and 
stand in the middl of the floor and begin to shout, and 
then they would say tome — "Do you see that man,Sancho 
Quixote? Do you know why he stands there and shouts? 
Well," they would go on very quietly, "it is becaus we 
make him do it. Do you understand now? We-make-him- 
do-it. Do you know what that means?" 

I did my best to keep the idea out of my hed that 
they had any such power. The mere idea, apart from my 
own feelings, made me revolt. I could not endure the 
thot of men and women being used in that way. 

"You ar all pawns, everyone of you, pawns, cursed 
pawns." Oh, how often I herd that. There was no idea 
they seemed to be so anxious to impress upon me in the 
erlier days, but I always thrust it aside as much as I 
could. I refused to yield to the idea, and so I refuse now, 
for I believ in free will, and glory in it with all its dangers 
more than ever, but I know now that there is not a littl 
truth in the pawn idea. 

I got one good illustration that amazed me about this 
time. I hav got a good many since, but that is another 
matter, for the doctors smile at them all. 

I was sitting at a tabl trying hard to keep my mind fixt 
upon a certain subject, while they were storming as usual, 
when suddenly one of the patients who was near me rose 
and came directly in front of me and began to say some- 
thing I did not understand nearly as rapidly as the spirits. 
"Now, Sancho Quixote," said a voice to me, "do you yet 
see that we hav ways and means of breaking tip your 
train of thot whenever we pleas? Do you yet begin to 
see how the world is governd? Did you notice how 



Ol'K UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



quickly that man obeyed our orders? We sent that im- 
puls into him." 

I know very well I was in a hermitage — I ot to* 
know fairly well that the average man there does not stand 
upon ceremony — I make full allowance for all that. But 
the action of this man at the particular time I speak of 
was so deliberate that I could understand what it ment 
better than I wisht. They took delight, it often seemed,. 
in making men around me do just about what they sug- 
gested to them. Again I say I krow where I was — again 
I say that I knew where to make allowance for any ec- 
centricities that I saw. And so the lerned men say that 
the demoniac theory of insanity has been given up? Ah, 
gentlmen, close your books if that is all they teach you. 

We ar not pawns, but we act sometimes as the me- 
diums, if I may use a word I rather dislike now, of the 
devil, or the mediums of God. Two courses, two ideas, 
ar placed before us far oftener than we think, for the 
mind is never idle, and we choose. Pawns do not choose. 

"And you come here with your silly ideas of social* 
reform," they said. "Do you begin to realize the 
magnitude of the task? We forbid the banns. We 
just simply forbid the banns!" A favorite ex- 
pression of theirs. "Do you think you ar the man 
to change such work as you see going on behind 
the scenes?" 

Well, yes. I am, you ar, we all ar, for we can- 
not help it. We hav receivd this world to govern 
and we can govern it as we choose, if we go in the direc- 
tion that God wishes us to go, but there is considerabl 
opposition that some of our theoretical frends do not suf- 
ficiently allow for. Guidance? Inspiration? Wisdom? 
Do not be alarmed. That is always redy, on condition 
that you ar willing to go in the only direction that can. 
bring ultimate happiness. We ar not deficient in knowU 
edge, but we ar unwilling to use what we hav.. 



FIENDISH PERSECUTION. 113 

We say something kind to a frend, that is the spirit of 
God speaking thru us in the last analysis. We say some- 
thing unkind, and Satan is using us. The question is, 
How much of each spirit ar we going to allow to filter 
thru us? One or the other is seeking expression every 
minute of our lives. 

We all know that the tung is an unruly member. Satan 
pulls the strings, and the mischief is done. "Get thee 
behind me Satan." Satan was using Peter then, and he 
uses all of us in the same way. A thousand idle thots 
shot thru the mind often issue in an ugly deed. It 
takes him a long time, but the patience of these evil 
spirits is marvelous. 

We go thru suffering, but nature is kind, for we forget 
the pain, and often we forget the lesson as well. 

"Don't you see" — and this may apply to some reader as 
well as it did to me — "Don't you see that it is wrong to 
wish to die. Why, it is ridiculous. You will come out of 
this struggl all right yet, free to do as you pleas just like 
any one els. Never mind these threts. You ot to know 
by this time that they cannot harm you. Satan, — we al- 
ways call him Satan here — the evil one, tries his best to 
drag you down, but you will overcome your troubls in the 
end." 

This kind of talk encouraged me, but a few minutes of 
the other dumpt me in the mud again. What is that that 
flows thru your nervs? Do you feel it beginning? and a 
feeling of despair coming with it? That is the source of 
your troubl and not the voices, 

I past thru several trances that I did not more than half 
like when I knew what they ment. Conversations went 
on around me as in the first one, but none was so bad as 
that altho dangerous enuf , In due time they ceast to my 
great relief, 

I had a great many visions that amazed me. I remem- 
ber one that I thot very strange. 



114 ° l ' R VNSKKN COMPANIONS. 

1 saw two great hosts in the center of a vast plain that 
sloped gently up from the open space between them. 
The one side was all drest in white; the other in black. 
1 had been told that when I past the great white army 
they would all laf and jeer at me and wave their hand- 
kerchiefs — figurativ I suppose, to humor our present 
modes of thot-and shout, "Renegade! renegade!" "Then," 
continued my instructor, "thru the hypnotic power we 
hav over you, we will change your hart, and charge it full 
of hate, and you will go over to the black host." Take 
service under the black flag, was the expression, — "and 
that is to be you future destiny. Your will is to be 
changed. You ar to be made a new man." 

Another night I had a long trance and a vision. The 
devil was busy, according to what I was told, separating 
my soul from my body. Latterly I found out that his 
servant had been busy trying to hold on to the power 
he had. 

"This is an old job with me," he went on, quite 
cheerily, and I listened to it all and was happy. "You 
will soon be all right now. A short time and you will 
join your frends on the other side. They ar waiting for 
you. " 

And they were: two companies, the one as before in 
white and the other in black. I awoke and lay still. "Can 
it be that I amded?" I askt myself. There were no 
signs of it, but I thot that perhaps the fault was mine, 
and I rose from the bed to join my frends. Then I 
groped around in the small room, and toucht the wall and 
the laf arose. 

" Hark ! they whisper : Angels say, 
' Sister spirit come away J" 
What is this absorbs me quite ? 
Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
Drowns my spirits, draws my breth ? 
Tel! me, my soul, can this be deth ? 



M The world recedes, it disappears ! 
Heven opens on my eyes! my ears 



FIENDISH PERSECUTION. 115 

With sounds seraflc ring : 
Lend, lend your wings ; I mount, 1 fly I 
O Grave ! where is thy victory? 

O Deth, where is thy sting?" 

Yes, there ar such things as trances, and yet there ar 
those who say that when the body dies that is an end to 
it all. There is something that can work when the body 
is lying dormant. What is it? 

One night I had a plesant dream that showed me a clear 
way out of my troubls, and I awoke happy. I had dremt 
that all I had to do to obtain relief was to stone the spirits, 
but I realized very soon after awaking that there was 
some littl difficulties in the way, and I dropt back upon 
the pillow amid the jeers and the lafter of my unseen, 
frolicsome companions who had sent the dream. Some- 
times I had visions of another kind that I think on yet 
with some plesure, altho I do not want to be in a posi- 
tion to see anything of the kind again. I seemed to see 
stars whirling around in their orbits so far away, so far 
beyond the grasp of our imagination in its normal state, 
that I retain even now an idea of distance, of the vastness 
of space that astonishes me. We say that the erth whirls 
around on its axis and rolls along its orbit, but we don't 
realize just what it means, but then I seemed to be con- 
scious that there was nothing below us, that we were 
really flying thru the air and a sens of the awful grandeur 
of the univers fild my mind when the body was lying 
asleep. 

' 'Who rounded in his palm those spacious orbs? 

Who bowled them flaming thru the dark profound?" 



110 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIIONS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
Don't Mention It! 

"I could a tale unfold whose lightest word 

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy yungr blood. 

Make thy two eyes like stars start from their sf eres. 
Thy knotted and combined locks to part 

And each particular hair to stand on end 
Jake quills upon the fretful porcupine." 

One of the worst experiences has not been yet told. 
Peopl in this world never know how happy they ar until 
something happens, and then they sigh for the days that 
ar no more. 

One day I was surprised to find a plesant odor of wall- 
flower near me. I wondered what could cause it for a minute, 
but that became clear like everything els. I seemed to 
liv in a garden for some time, and it was rather agree- 
abl. Flowers of all kinds seemed to perfume the air 
around me and I enjoyed it. It was a relief to fiud some- 
thing of a plesant nature in the midst of the fight. "Let 
them hypnotize," I thot. "I might as well enjoy some- 
thing." 

Then they would throw the scent of some flower on the 
air and my mind would wander back to boyhood. "Yes, 
my son, that is how it used to be, but things ar slowly 
changing for you now. You ar in a hermitage among the 
other fools. You begin to realize, do you, what a happy 
life the average man and woman leads on this erth? And 
you wanted to reform it, did you? And you still hold on 
to your ideas do you, in spite of the fact that we hav told 
you that we don't luv them? Now, Sancho, there ar other 
smells. Do you feel that?" 



DON T MENTION IT. 117 

"Yes, I felt it and gaspt for breth. From beginning' 
to end I never said a word to my medical f rends on the 
subject, for I knew it was no use. There ar no voices, 
and no smells, and that settls it. But it does not, — that 
is, not quite. 

They laft and mockt at me when my calamity came, 
and I could hav lain down on the floor and died. "It is 
no troubl to show goods!" they shouted. The bitter sar- 
casim was hard to bear. I think that from beginning to 
end this was the worst trial of all. Imagination, indeed! 
No wonder the doctors scout at the theory of demoniac 
possession, for that being granted a good many strange 
things will follow. 

' 'Yes, you poor fool, and you will feel it just as often as 
we pleas in the future. Why, w r e could almost pity you 
in your misery, if we had not led you on, but you see 
business is business. Then what right hav you in this oc- 
cult world, as you call it, hearing our misery? You w T ill be 
treated as we pleas now. Yes, write your littl book, if 
you can, and tell your brother fools to keep away from 
us and mind their own business. " 

Some unfortunates ar not only afflicted as I was, but 
their food is turned to a putrid taste. I was mercifully 
spared this trial. But I had enuf on my shoulders without 
it. The chances ar that I would hav eaten my food in 
spite of the taste had I been in their case, but it is hard 
to tell. You say the food is all right — it is clearly hal- 
lucination. Now, it looks that way on the face, but ar you 
sure? Hav you quite fathomed the secrets of the hidden 
world? Ar you quite sure that under certain circum- 
stances they do not hav certain powers that make your 
science of very littl moment? We thot we knew all about 
the component parts of the atmosfere up till last year, 
and then we were told of argon. What if there ar other 
properties that we do not hav the faintest suspicion of? 
What if our pretty littl instruments ar not just fine enuf 



Il8 OUR UNSKKN COMPANIONS. 

to gage all the mysteries of the tmivers? But this is high 
treason, and the doctors will send me back to the hermit- 
age if I am not careful. 

One thing is certain, however, and that is, I was very 
glad that I knew something of the other side of the ques- 
tion, for if I had been compeld to belie v that I was so 
far gone as to imagin all I felt and herd the doctors would 
hav had one of the worst cases in the hermitage on their 
hands, which shows that it is well to humor a man occa- 
sionally. 

There ar some things that seem to be too hard to endure. 
Sometimes we become 

" Weary with dragging the crosses 
Too hevy for mortals to bear." 

The horribl smells discouraged me altogether. 

"Will you tell them of this in that wonderful book you 
ar going to write, Sancho? " they askt often. 

They enjoyed torturing me, we may say. Sometimes 
I think they did, and again, I am afraid not. It is a law 
of the univers that no being can harm another without 
suffering in some way for his act. And they suffer, but 
they seem to liv in a frenzy of hate that leavs no room 
for reason. 

We ar not so thankful as we should be in this world. 
We do not know the dangers that surround us. I red a 
vers in a French testament to-day that I liked. It was in 
Ephesians 6:12. Spiritual wickedness in high places, is 
the English version. Evil spirits in the air, is how the 
French put it, and that suits me better. That is where 
they ar. In the air around you. 

"Now, Sancho, you understand what it is to be an un- 
clean spirit. Ha, ha, ha, that is a good one ! We ar all 
that way." Yes, there is a bitter world around us. I 
shall hav something to say of an evolutionary future after 
deth for all who reject Christ, but just remember this and 
preceding chapters when you read it. Misery, unhappi- 



DON T MENTION IT. II9 

ness and plenty of it. How can it be otherwise when they 
torture lis? I came to understand that I had no right to 
rage against them even while suffering. I pitied them, 
for I could not help it. It is terribl. 

I thot of a story of Captain Marryat, that I had red in 
my school days — some Flying Dutchman legend, I think. 
The unfortunate sailor had fot for years against the 
demon who tortured him. Everything went wrong, 
wrecks, misery, headwinds and rolling tides that sent him 
back to the old task, tired but angry, until one day he 
came to himself and forgave his tormentor. I think the 
worst man on erth would pity these beings. Talk about 
your evolutionary future as you pleas, I do not want to 
be in their companionship after deth. 

It is the wrong they are doing. Somehow, I cannot 
think otherwise than that they can ceas from doing evil 
and lern to do well just as we can. God, we ar told in 
the prayer book, hateth nothing He has made. It is the 
evil they ar doing and not themselves He hates. He luvs 
even the rattlsnakes, and that kind of a luv is far abov 
our reach. 

They had told me wonderful theories of luv and hate 
during the first weeks of my acquaintance with them. 
Luv was necessary as well as hate. Luv was strong but 
hate was stronger. Luv moved slowly, but hate went to 
the mark like a flash. Satan and hate were necessary as 
well as God and luv in order that the great plan of devel- 
opment might be carried out, and I lay and wondered at 
it all. Then they argued and reasoned with me about the 
many theories that ar now afflicting our erth, and their 
motiv from beginning to end was to show that a Savior 
was not necessary — -that each man was his own savior — 
that it was survival of the fittest on both sides of the 
grave. 

They discust spiritism, theosofy, pre-existence and the 
ologies that we ar now occupied with, and laf t at them all. 



120 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

"Tell them if you like, Sancho Quixote, what you hav 
herd. We do not care. We know the race too well for 
that, and if a man should rise from the ded we would still 
be abl to deceiv them as we hav always done. But if you 
do tell them anything at all be sure you do not forget the 
smells — stinks we call them here. " They try to destroy 
ourhelth: were these smells hel thy? 

It is a pity that men and women will not sit down calmly 
in these days and read the Bible without commentary 
from Christian, agnostic, savage or filosofer. It is a true 
book, but it means life as well as belief; the "straw"epistl 
of James as well as the parts that suit the taste better. 
We hav forgotten the true meaning of that most sternly 
democratic of all books, and used it like a thing of shreds 
and patches and many of our higher critical, reverend 
f rends hav led the way. 

If, but here we go back to an unplesant subject, — if the 
smells were imaginary, why did I hav to sniff the air the 
same as you do when you want to feel the odor of a flower? 
You may say why did I snuff at the air when I did not 
expect, to feel anything plesant but I had to — that is to 
say, by some process or other, not so very mysterious after 
all, the nervs in the nostrils were pulled for me. I inhaled 
the air because I had to. I struggld hard to keep my nos- 
tils at rest but it would network. Who pulled them 
against my will, especially when there was something in 
the air that was not agreeabl? During the time it went 
on I thot that the sensation was registered on the brain 
without the need of anything to smell at, but why were 
the olfactory nervs pulled? 

When the worst of it was past too, a filosofik kind of a 
thot struck me and I put my fingers to my nose and soon 
the trubl ceast for the time being. Why, if it was imag- 
ation? It was "in the air." 



HYPNOTISM MEANS TORTURE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Hypnotism Means Torture, 

The fight for sleep was very hard to bear. When you 
ar falling* asleep you ar obliged to relax the will power — 
you cannot very well solve a mathematical problem just as 
you ar hovering on the borders, and then was the time 
that they were busiest. 

A hevy, drowsy feeling would overcome me, and it 
seemed as if in less than a minute I would be happy in 
forgetfulness, and I often longed for the night to come, 
just to get a rest, but rest came slowly. Suddenly, as I 
would be falling over, I would get a twitch and a sharp- 
word — " Attend to your masters, Sancho Quixote — " and 
the soothing, delicious feeling would be gone, and I would 
feel as wakeful as in the middl of a winter day. My brow 
would be as cold as if it had been freezing, and I would 
feel a current of cold air blowing softly over my face — 
something that is very common as "occultists" know. 
Then after a few minutes torture of this kind they would 
say — "You will pleas go to sleep, Sancho, and do what 
you ar told; we ar teaching you what the occult means," 
The same longing for sleep, the same drowsy feeling 
would come on ; an intens, bitter desire for rest — just to 
be let alone, or to be put out of misery. Then the old 
plan was followed, and I was awake in an instant. Thus 
it went on for an hour or two sometimes till I lay and 
cried with vexation and anguish, 

I had often wondered how men and women had found 
courage enuf to suffe rat the stake but I thot then that there 



} 



112 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

were wors ways of torturing- human beings, Deth is often 
a welcome relief. One night was bad enuf, but when it 
went on regularly I could not help thinking of poor Job's 
exclamation — " Wherefore is light given to him that is in 
misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; which long for 
deth, but it cometh not ; and dig for it more than for hid- 
den treasures; which rejoice exceedingly, and ar glad 
when they can find the grave ?" " Ar you still keeping 
cheerful, Sancho Quixote? Ar you still fighting it out 
Do you understand that the game is ours, and that we 
can torture you as we pleas? Do you call that torture? 
You fool, you know nothing about it. Cry away, my 
littl man, cry away. It will do no good now. Tears ar 
of no avail in this world. Is the littl man seepy? Seepy, 
seepy eyes?" 

Then they came close to me and said as they often did 
— " Do you not realize yet that this is hell? It is a state 
of the mind, you fool. Fire and brimstone is nonsens. 
Do-you-understand-matters-yet ? And do you know that 
you hav had several good chances to escape, but that you 
mist them all ?" 

Sometimes I felt as tho things were going too far. In 
spite of the encouragement I receivd from frendly voices 
it was too much, and they pumpt a savage feeling- into me 
that did not do me any good. 

44 Ah, that's it, is it ? Will you indeed ? Come away, 
then, Sancho Quixote, we ar waiting for you, and will 
give you a cordial reception. " 

Then sometimes a mock peace would come and I wuold 
be told that my frends were being sacrificed for me to 
giv me relief, and I would wonder why I had been born. 

" Xoone is being sacrificed for you. There is nothing 
of the kind here. Be natural, be natural." 

' ' No," the others would respond to this encouragement, 
and the agony would begin again. " You cannot escape 
torture by coming here. Annihilation ? There is no 



HYPNOTISM MKANS TORURE. 1 23 

such thing. A nice kind of a man to attempt to destroy 
spirit ! The thing is not done. That is what we want, 
hut we cannot get it. If you come here you will be a 
wandering, unclean spirit with consciousness and mem- 
ory. Take a kindly advice and remain where you ar. 
All those who come by that route regret it. " 

And I knew that there was nothing for it but fight. I 
knew the end of it if I sat down and became despondent. 
In fact, I was not allowed to do so. I soon came to un- 
derstand that there was help for me, but I had to do 
something for myself. If I tried to sit down under it 
too long the torture became worse. God sends us help, 
but He expects us to do something ourselves. I thot, too, 
that perhaps it was as well for me to fight it out even at 
the worst as a matter of self-respect. I had red a good 
deal about mental suggestion, and kept their influence out 
of my mind as much as I could by filling it with some- 
thing better — a fairly good plan for you, altho you ar not 
in the toils — just yet. We read bad literature and listen 
to bad talk and think but littl of it. Some day yon will 
fight against it for your life if you go to the evolutionary 
future, and then 3^011 may find that it is not an easy mat- 
ter to escape evil ideas. 

" Don't you understand that very few come thru your 
struggl. You ar ment to do something in the world yet, 
and you will come out of it all right. Concentration, 
faith and prayer. Concentration, faith and prayer. f ' 

And when I felt that the waters were flowing over my 
soul and it seemed that I could not endure it longer, help 
came at once and remained with me till I was at peace. 

For about a coupl of weeks I had a struggl with another 
kind of a foe. Whatever you may call that substance — 
od, or anything els you pleas, it is not altogether a ples- 
ant thing to feel it in your system. It seems to pass thru 
you from head to foot as stedily as the beating of a puis. 

Between eleven and one every day for the time I speak 



124 



OTR UNSEEN COMPAN1IONS. 



of, it was worst. It went thru me like a flood, and it was 
so strong that I thot I should hav fallen on the floor. The 
desire to sleep was overpowering, butinstedof yielding to 
it as I should do now, I fot against it, for I was afraid that 
they were going to throw me into a trance and make me 
speak as they pleased, and this did not suit me. 

I was strongly tempted just to lie down, to end it all, 
to let them do anything they pleased with me but I strug- 
gld on and on from day to day waiting for the letter that 
never came. 

To sleep, as our Danish frend says, would hav been 
simpl enuf , but I was not quite so sure about what might 
take place while in that state. Sleep is natural, certainly, 
and I would run chances if called to go thru it again, but 
I knew something of what happened to others when they 
yielded, and that put a new light upon it. The man who 
believs all the experiences we read of ar imaginary, would 
never hav hesitated. A littl knowledg is troublsom. 

I ventured to whisper my condition to two of the doc- 
tors. One does not wish to be suspected of harboring too 
many delusions in a hermitage. It is not quite plesant. 

"It seems to me, doctor, that I am under some kind of 
hypnotic influence." "Sleepy, eh?" Only that and nothing- 
more. My unseen companions laf t loud and long, as they 
had a right to and I subsided. Possum up a gum tree. 

And yet, and yet Dr. Charcot, who knew something of 
the subject, told the French peopl that in less than fifty 
years prosecutions for witchcraft under another name 
would be common. 

We became fixt in our ideas after a time. I was so set- 
tldinmine, so far as these fenomena were concerned, that 
it was useless to try to change them, and the medical 
authorities ar just as settld in theirs. 

But since I am digressing, who gave me the address of 
a letter that I wrote about this time to a friend? I did 
not know where he livd, but he got the letter as I directed 



HYPNOTISM MEANS TORTURE. 1 25 

it. I herd a voice tell me the address. Was it imagin- 
ary? Very strange that my imagination will do such 
things. Very strange that such cases can be red off by 
the hundred, if you ar still so far behind the times as to 
need such instruction. 

A frend who wrote me said very sensibly that the hu- 
man brain can only give off what it has receivd. How did 
it come that I herd words that I had never listened to on 
erth before, and never want to listen to again? I could 
not have imagind them, and yet they came. You 
wonder sometimes where a great many of the expressions 
we hear come from. Think it over. 

I would begin to wonder why I should be suffering so 
much and they seldom failed with their explanation — 
"Natural law, natural law. There is no use praying. We 
ar all insane as well as the peopl around you." And some- 
times they wailed in a mocking way that made me half 
shudder, not thru fear, for you get used to everything in 
time, but because I knew they were suffering. There was 
no mockery about some of their wailing. 

But the time came when I could lie still and suffer and 
-be strong enuf to bear it, and then it was that all danger 
to myself past away, and I felt relievd at the change. I 
had said but littl about my fight to any one near me, for 
I had found after several trials that it did not do much 
good. Nonsens! If they were real voices why should I 
not hear them? 

There is room for great improvement in our model her- 
mitages yet. Sometimes I was shockt to see how a few 
of the patients were abused. I might as well say here 
that so far as personal treatment was concerned, except 
on one occasion, I had nothing to complain of, but I could 
not endure to see some of the other men abused, I found 
that nine per cent of the attendants were really good 
harted and willing to do anything for you, but a few of 
them get careless and use their strength where there is no 



126 OUR UN9EEN COMPANIONS. 

occasion for it. Very often they ar too young for such 
position. 

" That is the way always," came a frendly voice to me 
one day as I was thinking that the right kind of men would 
not knock a man down and kick him as some I was near 
were doing. ' ' You go along in your ordinary way well enuf 
pleased, but as soon as troubl comes you want Christian 
men and women to help you. Let this be a lesson to you. " 
"Then," I replied, forgetting my usual habit of not ask- 
ing questions, "In spite of all the arguments we hav 
herd Christ was really divine ?*' Rather a singular ques- 
tion for me to ask, for I believd that He was, but we like 
signs and wonders in all generations. 

"Can you doubt it now after what you hav herd and 
suffered? " 

It would be unfair to close all the chapters without 
making a humbl bow to the profession, and I will narrate 
a littl incident that amused me somewhat when a laf was 
valuabl. 

I had fallen into the habit of keeping my teeth clenched 
during the worst of it, and my frends ofen told me in a 
derisiv way that I was on the wrong track. "Ah, mon 
ami on the serre pas les dents ici — on serre les pensees. 
Yes, I knew that it was necessary to squeeze the thots 
insted of the teeth, but it was difficult work. 

But it was necessary abuv all things to try to keep my 
teeth shut as I was falling to sleep — a difficult task. If 
my mouth opened the teeth came down like a rat trap 
sometimes on the tung. and I did not enjoy it by any 
means. A frend, a believer in the old fogy idea of im- 
aginary voices, to whom I described this affliction, askt 
me if I did not think that it was perhaps due to worms. 
This was a new idea. I hav been obliged to take different 
ground from the faculty on the questions discust in this 
book, but if there is any way of making Tamende honor- 
able over the worms I am redy. Serrons la main, Mes- 



HYPNOTISM MEANS TORTURE. 1 27 

sieurs, et vivent les vers, et les pommes de terre frites- 
aussi. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
The Demons and the Armenian Massacres. 

We ar sometimes very anxious to pierce the mystery 
that lies behind the veil, but, as Longfellow says, the 
hevens abuv listen to our impatient questioning and giv no 
answer. We might not be quite so happy if we knew all. 
It may be that we ar still not quite strong enuf to know 
everything. 

I ofen felt that I herd far more than was good for me. 
When I realized my position I did not want to hear any 
more, but I had to submit. 

At first when I was under their influence I felt sickened 
at the task they got me to believ lay before me. " You 
must do what every one who comes here has to do — tell 
the whole story or say nothing at all. Let peopl under- 
stand this great battl that is going on between luv and 
hate. Do you begin to realize what kind of a battl it is? 
Did you ever hear of another trinity than the Christian 
one? What does the Mahomedan religion mean? The 
devil is never idle, but he lays plans and works stedily. 
What do you think of our plans for fighting Christianity? 
Who took hold of Mahomet and used him and made him 
believ he was serving God? Who took hold of men in 
the olden times before Christ came and laid plans to meet 
Him? Who has hold of you now in such a way that you 
cannot escape? Just the devil, you fool! and he will use 



1 28 our unseen COMPANIONS. 

you as he does others, and a great deal in your book will 
be used in his service." 

I had rather admired the parlament of religions at 
Chicago, but I lookt upon it now in another way. But 
before we can criticise other religions very much we shall 
liav to do something ourselves as well as believ something. 
ISTot argument but deeds, and luv, not selfishness. One 
man with a hundred millions a Christian, and another 
Christian starving? Read the New Testament for shame's 
sake. 

When the Armenian massacres were reported from day 
to day it was horribl for me to listen to the lafter and 
gloating. Evolutionary future indeed ! 

" Who is triumfing now?" they askt. War and massa- 
cre going on and evil spirits gloating over it all, and here 
the church parlors ar being turned into drill grounds, and 
boys ar being taut how to kill their fellow creatures. 

" Sancho Quixote," they said once as I sat and red of 
the latest Turkish outbreak, " just be kind enuf to stop 
your hypocrisy pleas. Do you understand that your 
Christians in the United States would not giv up their 
dinner to save their frends in Armenia from starvation? 
Just one dinner?" 

I would rather not think of what I herd at that time. 
If you think it best to risk the evolutionary future I fear 
that you will hav some very wicked companions, and it 
may be hard to rise. 

If the fashionabl churches and millionaires of our time 
-could only realize it, I thot often: if they knew how 
things ar, they would surely change, but they hav never 
changed in human history, and it begins to look as if they 
would have to beforct to do their duty now as ever. The 
rich men of America, says Bishop Spalding, must do 
their duty or perish. 

" We hav tumbled civilization after civilization, do you 
understand ? And this one will 2fo with the others. Did 



THE DEMONS AND THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES. I 29 

you ever hear of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome 
and the rest of them? Of all the fools who ever came 
thru you ar the worst. Do you think that your pretty 
reforms would change such a world? You ar all yung, 
but we ar old hands at the business. Write these things 
down if you dare. If peopl were stoned to deth in Old 
Testament times for meddling with things they had no 
business with, you can judge what will come to you if you 
persist in your determination to write what you hav 
herd. " 

1 ' You hav prayed and you know that others ar praying 
for you. How does it come that you are not yet releast?" 

One day I red about two old women, both nearly ninety 
years of age, who were sent to jail becaus they could not 
pay their rent. It was the only place for them it seemed. 
After their long life that was the end of it. 

" Read on, read on !" and their voices mingled with my 
mind as I lookt at the paper, and they repeated word for 
word. " There is your fine Christian civilization. That 
is what it means. You hav made a study of it, and know 
it pretty well." 

I sometimes wonder if the crisis can be long delayed. 
How long can it last ? Brutality and indifference on all 
sides, and sneers for any one who proposes a remedy. 
Was it not thus in the days of the fathers? Reform? 
The idea is foolish ! There is no need of it. The man 
who speaks of it is a crank, a fanatic, or anything you 
pleas. Down with him! and the newspapers almost 
without exception stand for the rich against the poor. 
But there is a world around us where millionaires and 
emperors stand upon the same footing as the man who 
sweeps the streets. This world does not end the brave 
show by any means. 

We do not know very much ; but we do know that good- 
ness and luv, and not hate and selfishness, must rule this 
world — that belief is good, but action is necessary. Our 



130 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

intellectual frends ar wrong. I listened for months to 
beings who ar far abuv our best in intellectual attain- 
ments, but there is something wrong with them. " Barren 
intellect, barren intellect/' I often sighed as I listened to 
them. 

They know, they feel, they suffer, and I believ we 
should not jest at them, as we often do, for it is a serious 
business. But we might easily lern from them that the 
solution of our troubls will hav to come from heds under 
the control of harts that feel for others. 



CHAPTER XX. 

' ' Jesus, Luver of My Soul." 

If you listened to an,y one speaking for several months 
you would hear a good deal more than you cared to read 
afterwards. It would take half a dozen volumes to write 
down all I herd, but one is sufficient to enabl you to 
judge whether it is wise to venture in among the inhabit- 
ants of the hidden world before our time. 

As a change from your ordinary condition how would you 
like to go round the circl for a few weeks as if you had a 
a bridl on your hed? My ears were affected in a way that 
was not only painful but very provoking. It was as if 
they had been made of a kind of rubber. When you press 
a rubber ball with a small hole in it the air is squeezed 
out — when you releas the pressure the air fills up the 
space. One, two! one, two! one, two! on it went regul- 
arly, exhaust and supply, and they amused themselvs at 
my expens. At that time I had not come to understand 
that the work on the pillow was not just what they had 



JESUS, LUVER OF MV SOUL. 131 

led me to believ, and I had the idea that they kept my 
ears open thru this process. And they held me to the 
belief by. causing a sensation as if the troubl lay in some 
way they acted on the atmosfere. 

Yes, I smile at it now, but keep clear of hypnotism, or 
you may believ some things that ar a trifl off color. "It 
cannot be that there is anything of the sort in my ears," I 
thot of en. 

"Indeed, indeed/' the reply would come, "and what 
does that mean then?" And they would "close " the ear, 
and I would feel relievd for a short time. Then they 
"opend " it again and amused themselves with me as a 
cat does with a mouse. 

" How does it feel to have a bridl in the ear, Sancho? 
That is how we ar going to govern you when you get 
*flossie?' ' That was the favorit word of theirs, I hav 
a fair theoretical acquaintance with slang, but I do not 
remember having met their favorit at any time. 

They would leav me alone for a while and I would be- 
gin to think of what I would do when I left the hermit- 
age. I would tell my experience so that others might be 
warned; I would do this, that and the other thing to try to 
do some good in the world when suddenly they would be 
back. 

"We just took off the power for a short time to see how 
you would behave and you ar back at your old flossiness 
again. Now, we don't like that. We ar on the other side 
of the fence, and you ar not going to carry out these fine 
schemes. It's this agressivness of yours — this awful 
.agressivness, that bothers us. Now you ar going to be 
punisht for your presumption." 

I did not understand that they themselves had sent all 
the fine schemes into my hed and unmaskt at the proper 
time to discourage me when I thot that they were going 
to say good-by. But they said good-by in this fashion so 
often, that there was soon a mutual understanding that it 
was played out — overworkt. 



13-2 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Very often I was deceivd in thinking they were speak- 
ing, when later on I found that I had been listening to 
human voices on the other side of a wall or a closed door. 
I say very of en, for this was the case. I would be busy 
reading or writing, and the murmur would be going on as* 
usual, but I, of conrs, would pay as littl attention to it as 
possibl. If I let my mind turn to the subject, however, 
sometimes found that I had been listening to another 
kind of imaginary voices — the ones you imagih you hear 
when your neighbor speaks to you. What is it Willie 
Shakespear says about imagining things? 

"Or in the night imagining some fear 
How easy is a bush supposed a bear." 

I went further than that: I did not know whether the 
bush was the bear, or the bear w r as the bush, 

They took a delight, it seemed, in causing me to feel 
warm spots over my body for some time. They varied in 
size from a dime to a dollar. Hallucinations? Well, like 
the ears, they were physically painful. When you put a 
moderately hot iron to your skin it may be a hallucination 
you feel — there is a sort of an occult sect teaching that 
doctrin to-day — but Sancho Quixote would not advise you 
to try the experiment. It burns; it hallucinates; and sa 
did the ones I felt. Now on the hart, burning, and un- 
comfortabl, now on the back, now on the arm, now any- 
where they wisht them to be. Read up on hypnotism and 
you will find that there is nothing strange about this. Hav 
men not been hypnotized so that a blister on the left arm 
would rise and another on the right applied at the same 
time would not? Who does the hypnotism you read of ? 
Men? Some of them think so, and I used to, but now I 
am not sure about it, or rather I am. Voices real, heat real, 
smells real! You ar on dangerous ground, Sancho Quixote. 

Why did I not speak of all these things? Becaus I thot 
that my work in life lay outside the walls of the hermit- 



]¥,*{]>, LUVKR OK MY SOUL. 133 

age. That was one very good reason for silence. With 
the W. K. C. O. A. L. I knew ennf to hold my tung. 

Singing of both kinds had stopt for about a conpl of 
months. Those who were helping me knew that I could 
not resist the temptation of listening to it, and the others 
were not allowed to sing. That is what I think of it now. 
Had they sung to me insted of cursing they would hav 
held me far easier. But one day I was out walking among 
the other patients feeling pretty discouraged over the strug- 
gl, for the voices had been shoiiting higher than before, 
Avhen suddenly as if from the sky abuv us loud and clear, 
glorious in volum, rolling along like a river, a grand chor- 
us burst out singing, 

" Jesus, luver of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly, 
While the nearer waters roll, 
While the tempest still is high." 

They sung the hymn, and I listened entranct. It was a 
grand, joyous burst of harmony. It remains a plesant 
memory to me, for I never herd singing again during my 
stay at the hermitage. 

The New Testament is a pretty fair guide for time and 
eternity. There ar evil spirits around us, as we ar told, 
but there ar good spirits too, and they sing praise to the 
Savior we luv on erth. 

It is a pity that we forget the lessons we lern in the 
Bible, but being much wrot upon, in these days, we ar 
perplext in the extreme. 

It was alternately exhileration and desperation as it is 
with others to a greater or less degree. Nature, we say, 
is taking care of us. Evil spirits pour in despondency, 
and we ar redy to sink, but the good spirits take control 
and our harts rise. In a crisis like mine both sides mani- 
fest their powers in a much more pronounct way, and I did 
what I could to further the work of those who were up- 
buildino-. 



134 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



"God is luv," I kept repeating- to myself, as I reasoned 
it out and fot inch by inch becaus I could. not do any- 
thing els, as despair nient more torture, " I want to rise, 
and it cannot be that He will not take care of me and 
help me. I must come out of this, and I will come out." 
Altho a few minutes of their work soon turned me to an- 
other view there was nothing" for it but to begin over 
again. 

Five minutes of sleep thru the day sometimes made 
me feel like a new man, but it was hard to get it. When 
I did succeed I was often awakened by some of the 
patients touching me or hammering around in one way 
or another. When I was awakened in this way the jeers 
arose — " Do you understand how the world is governed 
yet? Do you see how easily we break your littl nap?" 
I wanted sleep then and not theories. 



CHAPTER XXL 



Rejoicing as a Strong Man. 



After lying around like a plutocrat for a coupl of 
months I concluded that it would be better for me to da 
something to keep my mind away from my persistent 
enemies, and I began to write for a few hours a day on a 
subject not in any way connected with my troubls. I 
found it hard and unplesant work at first. Only those 
who hav past thru the trial can understand what a strong 
desire rises in you to lie down and let things drift as they 
will. 

It is a good idea to keep occupied with some kind of 



REJOICING AS A STRONG MAN. 135 

manual labor, but it is a littl risky for a doctor to put 
tools in the hands of a man he is not sure about. 

I wrote on stedily after I got in harness, a few weeks 
afterwards, and altho the noise was kept up outside it 
gradually lost distinctness of tone, and after a few months 
I seldom herd the well modulated voices which had 
tortured me so much. 

hi You will soon be strong enuf to do without our aid," 
the frendly voices told me as I became better, and I 
tried time and again to do without their encouragement, 
but as often as I tried the screws were turned on and I 
called for help. 

" We cannot stay with you much longer," I herd and I 
felt that I could never ..survive if left to the mercy of the 
demons. 

"Do not listen to that," another voice would say. "We 
cannot leav you. We cannot leav you, and we would not 
if we could. We will be with you to help you under all 
circumstances. " 

Then I tried again and failed, but the time came when 
they left me and I never herd them again becaus I did 
not expect them. I was strongly tempted to wish for 
them on many occasions, but managed to resist. The evil 
ones tried me a thousand times by using encouraging 
words as if from my frends, but altho longing for a word 
I knew that they would not come unless I wisht them and 
I resisted. Then I was left with the evil spirits, but the 
strength to resist them was furnisht. 

I hav often felt beaten when a change would come as 
if by miracl. Some doctor said lately that if you gave 
him control of your nervous system he could make you 
smile even if plunged in the depth of grief, or change 
your feelings as he pleased. Supposing, as I believ I hav 
alredy suggested, that our unseen companions hav our 
nervous system partly under control and help or hinder us 
as we ourselvs decide it is to be by our lives and bv our 



l$t OUR UNSKKN COMPANIONS. 

prayers? Hundreds of times it .seemed that I could not 
endure the savage attacks but strength came and Igotthru 

them. 

They hung on in the dining- room and the dormitory to 
the last. My hart often sunk as I past the threshhold of 
the door until I came to understand that they workt that 
littl change themselves to make me feel uncomfortabl. 
You ar redy by this time to accuse me of painting Satan 
blacker than he is, but I cannot overdo the subject. 

I found out in the earlier days that several of the bodily 
functions can easily be deranged while one is under the 
power, and that it is well to pay as littl attention as pos~ 
sibl to the feelings that arise within you in consequence. 

When you understand, for exampl, how fear is produced 
you ar not so much afraid of it. 

They kept me from smiling when I was eating, and I 
concluded that they were trying to derange the stomach. 
I had to listen then, as only a filosofer can eat and con- 
centrate at the same time. The stomach, the medical 
men assure us, is in intimate connection with the brain, 
and the evil spirits ar evidently good fisiologists. 

At first they had told me to fast, and I struggld hard 
to obey their instructions, but the faculty put an end to 
that cours. 

" Doctor," said the attendant, k 'he has not eaten a bite 
to-day. He refuses to eat. " 

I did not say why I had refused to eat. They made me 
believ that it was a religious duty. Had they not fasted 
in Bible times? This, however, was during the second 
I week of my stay in the hermitage. 

" Then," said the young doctor, looking me over as he 
thot with pride how easily science could surmount a littl 
difficulty of that kind. "Then we shall hav to toob 
him," and " toobed " I was. It was not a plesant way of 
taking food, I concluded: let science whistle; I'll follow 
the old route after this, and I did, altho they kept harp- 



REJOICING AS A STRONG MAN. 137 

ing on me to fast on the sly. I did it for some time, but 
the doctor gave me a tonic, and I became shamefully 
hungry. I was clearly not cut out for fasting. 

I felt that I could hav eaten enuf for three men, and 
I usually ate enuf for two. But ravenous as I was they 
put an end to it several times. I mean that I would enter 
the dining room as hungry as a bear, eager to get at it, 
and then I would sit down unabl to eat more than a 
morsel, while they laft and jeered and curst. 

"And so you expected a gorge, you swine that you ar. 
That is how we stop it." Claude Bernard said long ago — 
"We may, in short, produce any disorder of the organic 
functions which mark the crisis of fever, for exampl, by 
acting upon the nervous system and upon that alone*" 

But one day we went into a new dining room and the 
voices practically stopt at meal times. "Some new trick, " 
I said to myself, and paid no more attention to it, but I 
found that I was relievd from most of the persecution. 
I was as much surprised as any one could be. What could 
it mean? I could not understand it, for I had forgotten 
what a good f rend wrot me after the outbreak. I was away 
from the hermitage before the explanation struck me, and 
here I shall digress far enuf to say that I was told that ex- 
planations would come to me at the right time by a pecu- 
liar process and they hav. 

I did not know why the outbreak came so soon after the 
trance and the writing on the brain, and I did not know 
why the voices stopt in the new dining room, but I dis- 
covered in time to use the information. 

The voices stopt in the new building becaus it was new. 
The old one was charged with the evil influences, for hun- 
dreds of men met in it every day. 

Did you ever smile at the idea of haunted houses? Do 
you think it is a good idea to crowd so many possest men 
together? Sancho Quixote, who has helpt to build a good 
many houses, outside of the castls in Spain which ar his 



1 j;S OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

peculiar pride, has always thot that hermitages, hospitals 
and all such institutions should be built on the cottage 
plan, but Sancho is a trifl erratic. If he were a czar now, 
however, and had full say on the matter, as all well-bred 
czars hav, he would strenuously insist on the cottage plan, 
and classification of patients, let the alienists say what 
they pleas. But we ar off the track again. "Herd them 
together," say the alienists. "Mix 'em up and let'em 
rustl. That is the way to cure 'em. " Pity they don't 
mix among them and liv among them themselves. That 
would be a fair test of the value of their theory. 

I cannot express the plesure I felt when I could sit 
down and rest like other peopl. I knew what a bless- 
ing it was and appreciated it more than I had ever done. 
It used to be a short, sharp fight and they had me under 
the spell, but now there was peace, even if I knew well 
enuf they were redy at the slightest weakening on my 
part to begin the old game. 

All that long persecution, after they had lost their hold 
upon me, was simply to overwork the brain. When they 
began to send the thots into my hed in the morning 
when I was in a passiv, half- awakened condition their 
end was the same. Keep the brain working for twenty- 
four hours a day if possibl, and. the crisis will come. How 
I escaped so easily as I did when they sometimes kept me 
listening all night is a matter of surprise to me now. 

It was a great relief to get rid of one of their peculiar 
methods of reminding me that they still had an influence 
over my system. "Now we ar going to punish you for 
that," they would say, and a sharp pain would shoot thru 
my hed. It seemed to rise at the base of the brain and 
go over the whole hed in an instant. I was warned in time 
very often, and came to expect my punishment as a mat- 
ter of cours. Sometimes I would be indulging in a littl 
dream of future work and the quick twitch would be given 
with the words — "No more of that, pleas. You hav gone 



REJOICING AS A STRONG MAN. 139 

far enuf. No? You will not stop? Then how do you like 
that? And that?" I did not like either the pain or those 
who inflicted it, but that did not seem to hav any effect 
on them. If these voices were imaginary how did I know 
beforehand when the twitch was coming? 

We ar very complicated machines, but one thing is 
clear to me now, and that is, that we ar all acted upon 
thru the nervous system whether we ar willing to believ 
it or not. If we allow the system to become deranged, 
unplesant complications ar sure to follow. If you ar ner- 
vous, you ar irritabl, becaus your system is in such a 
condition that the evil spirits whose work is to make 
troubl on erth can act upon you instantly. 

You ar speaking quietly to your frend,, for exampl, 
and she says something that does not pleas you, when 
suddenly, before you know how it happened the hasty 
word is out and a littl more hell is let loos on erth. 
" How did it happen?" you ask yourself afterwards.. " In 
my inmost hart I really do not believ what I said." It 
happened because there ar unseen companions at your 
side and they act upon you unmercifully if they can, and 
conquer you. 

I hav been a pupil in their school and they hav shown 
me the machinery at work. I hav a realization of these 
things now that changes the face of the univers for me. 
I used to believ that there was actually a sky abuv our 
heds, but one day I came to understand that there was 
nothing there but space, and I livd in a new kind of a 
world. vSo it has been with this experience.' It has not been 
all loss. 

It is worth something, becaus it is well that we should 
take our bearings in these times. The New York Trib- 
une of April 19th, 1896, tells us something of the age we 
liv in that is worth reading: 

u It is a glorious privilege to liv in this last decade of 
the nineteenth century and to feel the pulsations of its 



J 4° 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



great living movements. The young man who finds 
himself abl to take a part in the onward rush of things 
to-day whether in the specialized fields of religious, fil- 
antropic, sociological or political effort is indeed to be 
envied. He may and often will doubtless be puzzled; he 
may, and doubtless will make many mistakes, but if he 
works faithfully and conscientiously he will hav the su- 
preme happiness of knowing that he has done something 
to make the world better, sweeter and purer than it was 
before." 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Demons Swear. Do You ? 

" Lord of all being, throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star." 



" O who is like the Mighty One 

Whose throne is in the sky, 
Who compasseth the univers 

With His all-serehing eye ? 
At whose creativ word appeard 

The dry land and the sea? 
My spirit thirsts for thee, O Lord, 

My spirit thirsts for thee. 

Around Him suns and systems swim 

In harmony and light ; 
Beside Him harps angelic hymn 

His praises day and night ; 
Yet to the contrite in the dust 

In mercy turn will He : 
My spirit thirsts for thee, O Lord, 

My spirit thirsts for thee." 

1 He taut me language, and my profit on ' 
Is JL know how to curse." 



That is what poor Caliban said, and there ar many like 
him to-day who seem to think that cursing is the best use 
you can put a language to. But it is a mistaken idea. 

" But I say unto you swear not at all ; neither byheven, 



DEMOMS SWEAR. DO YOU? 141 

for it is God's throne; neither by the erth; for it is His 
footstool; neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the 
Great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy hed, becaus 
thou canst not make one hair white or black." This is 
what our Savior said. ' ' The foolish and wicked practice 
of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and 
low that every person of sens and character detests and 
despises it." This is what George Washington said. 

And yet in the land that George Washington did so 
much for, there is, I am afraid, more cursing and swear- 
ing than in any other under the sun. The name of Jesus 
Christ who speaks so plainly on the subject of swearing 
is herd from tens of thousands as a curse, and yet I hav 
herd a friend say who had reached man's estate before he 
set foot on these shores, and who had workt among men 
who used profane language, that he had never herd 
Christ's name used in this horribl manner but once. 

A writer of sens told us some years ago that the Jewish^ 
boy used to put his hand before his mouth as a mark of 
reverence when he came to the name of Jehovah ; but 
here the littl urchins in the street hurl it as a curse at 
their companions. 

While I was at the worst of my fight I often said to the 
f rends who encouraged me, "What can I ever do to repays 
all this? There has been so much help that I feel I can 
never do anything to show my gratitude. " I often thot 
of the various reforms that we ar working for to-day and 
wondered if the beings near me did rot sympathize with 
us in our desire to make the lot of the poor easier. 

"Suppose," a voice said to me gently one day, "that to 
us the putting down of the awful swearing and profanity, 
and abuv all the taking of God's name in vain, would 
mean far more than all these reforms? Try what you can 
to put it down. Don't you remember what you herd so 
often during your first days here? Godisluv! God is 
luv! Do what you can to makepeopl ashamed of this habit 



i4- 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



and you will find it growing more intolerabl to you every 
day. " 

I found the saying a littl hard. Since my thotless school 
days I had not been guilty of swearing, but greater 
than the Utopias and the glories of the new civilization? 
Yes, I am inclined to think greater than these. Let us 
try in our poor, f eebl kind of a way to realize what God is. 
Look up at the stars. There I hav always found my 
answer in the time of troubl and doubt. Awful in glory, 
awful in grandeur, throned in the midst of the hevens, 
must this great being be, the Maker cf the univers, and 
y^et, and yet, we dare take His name in vain and use it as 
a curse. His stars and planets, millions upon millions, 
roll around their central suns from age unto ,age, and 
the immens systems themselves ar flying thru space 
around some central point as yet unknown. We ar dust 
before Him in one sens, and yet His sons in another. "Su- 
preme tyrant" indeed! If one of our proud ones held His 
power for a day he w r ould crush any one w r ho dared use 
his name in vain, and yet no word is more used in this 
day by those who swear. God is luv and He spares us. 
It is humilating to think of it. 

Do you know how men lerned to curse and swear? Has 
this book opened your eyes? 

There is a certain kind of excuse for almost all kinds 
of sin. It is wrong, wicked and foolish, of cours, but there 
is a certain kind of a reward in it, or the devil could not 
trap so many of us, but what can be said of swearing? 
Does it fill the stomach, or contribute in any way to make 
life easier? It is worse than the worst kind of insanity. A 
man is insane to use his Maker's name as many do. It is 
madness. I herd so much of it from fiends that I thot I 
should hav gone wild simply to listen to it. 

I used to wonder if the good spirits herd it, but the an- 
swer came — "No,no, we do not hear it. " — Will those who 
go to the evolutionary future escape this? — "but we know 
by the effect upon your mind what is going on." 



DEMONS SWEAR. DO YOU? 1 43 

Does the New Testament not speak about a great gulf 
that is fixt between them? "It hurts us," they said some- 
times, "to see you standing there thinking that these ar 
your own thots. " 

I was in the same position as John Bunyan's Christian. 
How does honest old John put it? 

"I took notice now that poor Christian was so con- 
founded that he did not know the sound of his own voice. 
Just when he was coming over against the mouth of the 
burning pit one of the wicked ones got behind him and 
whisperingly suggested many grevious blasfemies to him 
which he verily thot proceeded from his own mouth, but 
he had not the discretion to stop his ears" — Alas, John 
Bunyan, perhaps he could not — "or to know from whence 
these blasfemies came. " 

Yet it goes on in erth as in hell and we keep silence. 

Now this habit can be given up. In spite of the efforts 
of demons, for they send the suggestion, we can keep a 
watch over our tungs to that extent at least. When a 
man will whisper — "Stop swearing, there ar some women, " 
and the swearing comes to an end, it simply shows that 
there is but littl troubl in giving it up altogether. It is 
evident that we shall hav to re- write some of our books of 
ettiquet. "Ladies" ar held in higher esteem than their 
Maker, and this is not just as it should be. There is a 
want of proportion about it. We hav come to look upon 
cursing and swearing as matters of cours. If our eyes 
were opend as Elisha's servants were we would suddenly 
come to our senses and change our lives in a good many 
ways. 

I herd a minister say the other day that if one in six of 
the Christians in the United States should make up their 
ijiinds that they wanted something done nothing could 
stop them. I think he spoke the truth. 

Robespierre once said that ten men of exalted character 
who had fully made up their minds that they wanted some- 
thing would end by getting it. 



144 OUR I'NSKK.N COMPANIONS. 

In the old days it was a very serious matter to become 
a Christian. They threw them to the wild beasts in the 
arena for standing true to their convictions. And now 
they stand by and hear their Maker insulted without a 
word of protest when the law is on their side. 

The voices that I had lerned to trust spoke to me 
ernestly upon this matter. " Self-respect should not 
allow you to stand by and listen to it without rebuke. 
What if it does hurt their feelings? What of your own 
feelings? Are they not to be considered? vSelf -respect, 
ot to make you say ' Pleas do not swear in my presence,' 
or something of that nature to put an end to it." Then 
the other side came in w r ith the same voice and told me to* 
stamp it out; to let every one I herd rise language of thi& 
sort understand that they had to giv it up on the instant. 
It was the old story : speak in that tone and raise more 
hate insted of «doing good quietly. " 

I hav herd quite a number of church members cursing* 
and swearing as if it was a matter of no consequence. To 
this complexion hav some of our Christians come. Satan 
uses insane men for mouth-pieces, as a rule, but he uses 
some of the pillars of the church too. 

There is one oath that I hav herd men excuse in this 
country by saying that it does not mean anything. I hav 
herd some really good Christian men whom I respect 
using it as a matter of cours. It may be interesting to 
them and to others to know that from beginning to end 
of my experience I found that it was the favorit oath of 
the demons. Can it be possibl that it really has a mean- 
ing that we do not understand? 

" Pierce the tung of the blasfemers, " Savonarola 
shouted in the old days in Florence. What would he say 
in modern America? 






AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE. 145 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
An Evolutionary Future. 

4t The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip 

To haud the wretch in order. "—Burns. 



41 There's a wideness in God's mercy 
Like the wideuess of the Bea. 
There's a kindness in his justice 
Which is more than liberty. 

* # For the luv of God is broader 

Than the mesures of man's mind; 
And the hart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfull}' kind. 

*' Put we make His luv too narrow 
B7 f alse limits of our own, 
And we magnify His strictness 
With a zeal He will not own."— Fabbh. 



" There is an old belief 

That on some unknown shore 
Beyond the sfere of grief 
Dear frends shall meet once more. 

*' Beyond the sfere of time 
And sin and fate's control, 
Serene in changeless prime 
Of body and of soul. 

*• This creed I fain would keep, 
This hope I'll not forgo. 
Eternal be the sleep, 
If not to waken so."— From " Life of Carlyle," by Froude. 



*' And if there be no meeting past the grave. 
If all is silence, darkness, yet 'tis rest. 
Be not afraid, ye waiting ones who weep, 
For God still giveth His beluved sleep, 
And if an endless sleep He wills— so best."— Huxley's Tombstone. 

Mr. Gladstone said recently in the ' ' North American 
Review," — ' * This much we may presume to say: Had the 
divine revelation been intended to convey to us that time 



140 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

is an indispensabl incident of the future life, and that 
eternity is no more nor less than the unfolding of an im- 
measurabl roll of time-, it seems probab that the Bible 
could and would hav employed some terminology evi- 
dently adapted to that purpose. But such is not the ter- 
minology actually given us. For, in dealing with the 
condition of the righteous in the world to come, our 
Savior builds not upon terms of time but upon reunion 
with Deity, 

And in touching with greater reserv upon the condition of 
the wicked the image presented to us is either simply 
negativ, as in the case of the five virgins, or it is one of 
suffering without reference to duration, as in the outer 
darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth ; or, it is associated with words which etymologically 
and by use signify the indefinit rather than the infinit. 
Some of the passages without doubt introduce the awful 
image of finality. But such presentations ar held by some 
to be of extinction and total disappearance, rather than of 
a miserabl existence co-extensiv with that of Deity, and 
they may be possibly susceptibl of other explanations at 
present hidden from our view. In any case this great 
diversity of delineation may be thot to indicate a purpose 
of reserv." 

So much from one of the foremost and most lerned men 
of the age on a subject we ar all more or less interested 
in. Another distinguish t man wrote a series of artiels 
on " Happiness in Hell" a few years ago which did not 
meet the approval of his superiors at the Vatican, but the 
truth is that the Sanchos can speculate just about as wisely 
or as foolishly with respect to something that none of us 
knows very much about as the Gladstones or the Mivarts. 
As I hav had some littl experience with something that 
seemed to be hell enuf to satisfy any one, my views may 
be interesting enuf to those who ar looking for information 
about a quartet that all wise men and women will shun. 



AN EVOLTIONARY FUTURE. 1 47 

Another, and what seems to be a popular view of hell, 
and heven too, for that matter, is that each of us carries 
his future inside of himself. '-We ar lost," the traveler 
said to his Indian guide. "Indian not lost," was the 
reply. "Trail is lost." So in the future according to 
this theory the Indian cannot be lost. He remains. He 
will carry his good and bad qualities across the border, 
and grow better or worse as he feels disposed. If he 
wants to rise he will get all the help that is necessary ; if 
he persists in going down the path will slope very easily 
in that direction. 

On the face of it this looks a very plausible theory. 
The child grows and becomes a boy, the boy grows and 
becomes a man, the man grows after deth and becomes 
an angel. 

The idea of everlasting punishment is awful : it is hor- 
ribl beyond description. Some years ago I walkt thru 
hell under the guidance of our gloomy frend the late Mr, 
Dante of Italy. I took up his book the other day to see 
what I might find to help me out in my ideas of the abode 
of the wicked, but I threw it aside with loathing* and 
disgust after I had red a few cantos, A hell of that sort 
would set the whole human race in rebellion. No wonder 
Lombroso says that his countryman was mad. I think it 
is in the beginning of the life of John Bunyan that Froude 
says that such a punishment may be according to law but 
it is not according to justice. 

Everlasting punishment if we could but faintly realize 
what it means would turn us all mad. " I knew when I 
first herd the doctrin," says a distinguisht agnostic of this 
country, --that it was a devil's lie from the hart of hell." 

For a good many years I scouted at the doctrin. I could 
not believit. God is luv, I reasoned. Everything moves 
on harmoniously and in good order in His univers. He 
would never create human beings for even a thousand 
years of agony let alone an eternity. Put sin at its worst, 



148 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS, 

and I belie v none of ns can conceiv of what it is in our pres 
ent life, He will look upon our transgressions as we look 
upon those of children. He will punish us for them in 
order to let us understand that it is impossibl for sin to 
remain unpunisht, but it will be as when we punish a 
child in some way or other to train it up to become bet- 
ter. He must show to an intelligent univers that sin can- 
not go without punishment — we ar not His only creatures. 
But an eternity of punishment such as only the hart of a 
savage could conceiv — for this is how most peopl feel 
about it if they deal faithfully with themselvs — for a pun- 
ishment of the sins of even the worst man who has ever 
livd. and especially from One who knows all the various 
hidden springs of human conduct? How do you like it? 
I hav herd some speak of it as if it were the most natural 
thing in the world, something it was not necessary for 
them to troubl about. They escape, as we may all do, 
but as we know very well we do not all do, for the plain 
truth is that millions die without accepting Christ, but 
can they remain calm when they think that their brothers 
and sisters ar going to be punisht forever? 

How many men and women really believ it? How 
many of them ar acting as if they believd it? Lands, 
houses, erthly glory would be of no account with you if 
you really believd it. You would throw everything aside 
and plead with your fellow men night and day to escape 
from the awful horror. 

How many men do this? What do you think of a man 
who believing this doctrin will calmly sit in his library 
and read till his brain turns on such subjects as the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, of Isaiah and of all the rest 
of the theological lumber that few men care very much 
about, while he knows that many of the men and women 
he meets ar on the way to an eternity of agony? I think 
that his hart is in the wrong place. It will not do to say 
that he opens his church and everybody is wxlcome to 



AN EVOLTION.ARY FUTURE. *49 

listen to him — if they will not listen he is clear, and so 
forth. Is that the way you take it? That man you talk 
to sometimes — the men and women you see pass your house 
every day in the year ar on the road to an eternal hell and 
you sit still and read the latest novel? You don't believ 
it. 

We look our brothers and sisters in the face as we ee 
them go by, and we ask ourselves, Would we do it ? 
Would you do it? You might hang a man — I think it is 
wrong to do so, and of late I am inclined to think he 
may easily work us more harm ded than alive if he is so 
disposed, but would you torture him for a year? From 
every corner of the land the stern order would come to 
put an end to it. God is luv, and yet we believ that He 
would torture men eternally. We would not do it for a 
year, and yet we calmly assert He will do it forever, and 
we go on and amuse ourselves and crush helpless wretches 
in the slums, so that the chances ar nine out of ten that 
they will go in the wrong direction, and we talk of punish- 
ing them eternally for it. 

You hav committed many sins when you were a boy, 
we shall suppose. How do they look to you now ? Fool- 
ish, wrong; you know that it would hav been better if 
you had not sinned, but do you, now that you know the 
nature of sin better, think that you deserv to suffer for 
ever for the evil deeds you did in your youth? 

I used to lie with hell raging all around me and specu- 
late over it thru the long nights, and ask myself, How ; i 
it should be like this eternally. This, I said, is for a 
few months. My own folly has brot me here, and not any 
visitation of God. I am here as the result of His laws be- 
ing set aside in one way or another, at one time or another. 
Who is to blame for the suffering on earth now? Every 
man of us who has sinned since the days of Adam down, 
says Carlyle, and it is true, altho not all the truth. Others 
besides mortals are at the work. 



150 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

What if this should go on eternally? I thot. I am afraid 
that like the agnostic I hav alredy spoken of, we would 
be inclined to call God the keeper of a great penitentiary. 

Sin works its own destruction. We shall be punisht if 
we sin, and when after deth we realize the nature of sin 
better than we do now I believ that unless we accept Christ 
our suffering will be hard to bear, but without a minute's 
respite from the torture? That is a hard saying. No 
wonder that Barnes said that it was all dark to his soul. 
I do not like the thot that any will be lost. Go over the 
list of the worst men you can think of — consider their en- 
vironments and their heredity, — consider the tempta- 
tions the devil lays before us all and look into your own 
hart, and you ar at least willing to acknowledge that you 
would like to see the agony stop before a million years. 
No? Most of us would like to see Nero singd for a time, 
but after a while we would be anxious to reliev him un- 
less he wisht to remain. Think it over. 

One day I was seated at dinner without the usual ac- 
companiment of the voices. I did not know w r hat the silence 
ment when suddenly the following message came — "Men 
and women who accept Christ hav their sins cast behind 
God's back, while those who reject Him come here on the 
evolutionary plan and take their chance. The Christians 
become as the angels in heven. The others struggl as 
they do on erth. Satan will tempt them here as they ar 
tempted now, and the temptation will be far stronger 
and many will yield and suffer." That was not all. I do 
not remember the exact words of the last sentence, but it 
was to the effect that some went down never to rise. If 
they ar determined why not? 

I was startld at the suddennes of the message and its im- 
port. You know where it came from as much as I do. 
Whether from good or from evil spirits you will hav to 
judge for yourself, but it fits into my previous beliefs so 
aptly, and provides such a reason abl future for our fellow 



AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE, 151 

beings that the more I think over it the better I like it — • 
but I do not mean to risk it. You can if yoii wish to. 

The reasoning which was poured into me afterwards 
was something like this — God will struggl with us after 
deth even if we did not accept Christ just as He does now. 
He is not willing that any should perish. He will try to 
raise all nearer Himself as he does now, but on the other 
side of the grave there is free will as there is here. If a 
man wishes to rise he will get help, — if he wishes to go 
lower he will likewise get help, and he may find the road 
easier than on erth. In short, it is simply the theory I 
used to believ in with this change to me — That I now be - 
liev that Christianity is true and that Christians will be 
saved the struggl between good and evil in the future. 
God is luv, and insted of withdrawing His influence from 
those who reject His grace He will even after deth con- 
tinue to help all who seek his aid, but they will suffer as 
they see the result of their past folly in rejecting Christ 
and accepting evolution. Suppose it is worth accepting 
as this life is to any man with eyes in his hed, it will be 
so far short of the calm bliss of the saints that we shall 
wonder at our folly. Go further, and insted of the hor- 
ribl, medieval hell we hav dreded, suppose that the future 
for all who wish to rise insted of to sink will be so far be- 
yond our dreams that we shall thank God every hour for 
His great luv in creating us, what if we see that not content 
with this He has provided a future for us beyond the risk 
of troubl? God is luv, we say, but why do we not realize 
it? What if we ar met by a gentl reproach for our folly 
insted of the awful doom? But if we will not rise even 
then is it God who curses us? Do we not curse ourselves? 
If we ar determined to keep on sinning what then? 

But there will likely be great punishment in the mild 
hell. The fire and brimstone will not offend you, but you 
ar likely to gnash your teeth, for a good many of us hav 
gnasht them in this world and we need not be surprised if 



iS 2 



OUR UNSEEN COM TAN IONS. 



we hav to continue the practice in the next en cas que 
nous ne soyons pas sage ici bas. 

Do you know what it means to hav your sin cast behind 
God's back? Perhaps it means more than you imagin. 
Supposing you see your sins and their effects as you hav 
never seen them before. Supposing that they ar thrown 
in your face till you go wild to think of them, for only 
simpletons believ that anything can be conceald, in the 
future life unless as I hav alredy said we ar wise. Do you 
expect that you can liv in such a comparativly mild hell 
without an occasional twinge of agony? And when is it 
to stop? 

Most peopl hav done things that they do not like to be 
reminded of — for where's that palace whereunto foul 
things sometimes intrude not — and if the evolutionary 
future is accepted the risks must be accepted with it. 

You would not mix with the evil spirits. You ar a littl 
particular about the quality of your acquaintanceship, we 
shall suppose. Very good, but suppose they like you too 
well to leav you, and suppose that the better you grow 
the more you dislike their ways, what then? Your sins, 
your past folly lie all before them. That much I know; 
and I know too just what use they make of the knowl- 
edge? Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver 
me from the body of this deth? Will you risk it when 
you can escape? 

And remember that Mr. Moody and many others say 
that the devil is deceiving us when we believ that there is 
not a hell of endless torture. The very conception is hell 
enuf for me, but let it pass. Peopl will be won by luv, 
but never by threts. 

Happiness, devolpment, growth, luv that grows stronger 
every day and yet a few minutes of torture that you can- 
not escape make yon writhe in the midst of your happi- 
ness. You come to see something of the grandeur of 
God's designs, and your luv for him grows every hour. 



AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE. 1 53 

As ages roll on, we shall suppose that you luv him so 
much that you would be willing to come to erth and die 
for Him if necessary, but if you ar in the company of 
those who, jubilant at discovering that hell is not what 
they lookt for, exult in their liberty as they did on this 
erth and curse and blasfeme till your soul sickens at their 
wickedness, what then? Ar you so fond of the strugglon 
erth? Paul was a strong man, but was weary of it. 

How can you stop communion with those whose lives 
you detest? It is commonly believd that telepathy, or 
telegrafy, or thot transference goes on from star to star 
thruout the univers, and this seems a very reasonabl 
theory. Will you be abl to concentrate your thots suffi- 
ciently well in the future to avoid all risks? Would it not 
be better to take the other plan? 

The evolutionary future as outlined here leavs much to 
be desired. With memory, the worm that never dies to 
keep us in troubl, with luv pouring into our souls from 
those with whom w r e cannot mingl, with the conscious- 
ness that we may never reach the heven which we might 
hav won and stand amid the throng that surrounds the 
throne of God himself, it looks as if there would be 
troubl enuf laid up for those who insist on taking things 
on the natural plan insted of acknowledging that faith is 
supplementary to reason. 

It is likely enuf that we shall yet be forct to acknow- 
ledge in spite of the horribl suffering around us and the 
many things that we cannot understand that God's plan 
was the best, and it is more than likely that we shall be 
amazed at the folly of those who, condemning the horrors 
of the present life, refuse the chance to escape the horrors 
of the future. I herd the same voices bless and curse, as 
I hav said. "We cannot help it," they told me. "Now it 
is Satan that gets the upper hand, now it is Christ. Luv 
and hate, and so you will struggl to all eternity. It all 
lies in the mind. We change your mind quickly now and 



154 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

make you feel as we do. The minds of other men, and 
yours too under normal circumstances change slowly, and 
the suffering or bliss comes with the state of the mind." 

There was nothing* alarmingly new in that statement. 
What if something of this kind is the eternal punishment 
referred to? I do not mean to risk it. I do not believ in 
the old fashioned hell, tmt as I hav got over the fingers 
for my unorthodox views lately I am inclined to doubt 
myself now when I hav to believ anything that does not 
agree with the Bible, and I was therefore much pleased. 
to find recently that such a man as Dean Farrar does not 
find any warrant there for endless punishment. 

He says in his book, -'Eternal Hope" — "Yet, I say un- 
hesitatingly, — I say, claiming the fullest right to speak 
on this point,— I say, with the calmest and most unflinch- 
ing sens of responsibility, — I say, standing here in the 
sight of God, and of my Savior, and it may be of the 
angels and spirits of the ded — that not one of these three 
expressions (he refers to the words damnation, hell and 
everlasting) ot to stand any longer in our English Bibles 
for they ar mistranslations. * * * Thus, then, finding 
nothing in scripture or anywhere to prove that the fate of 
any man is at deth irrevocably determined I shake off 
the hideous incubus, the atrocious conceptions — I mean 
those conceptions of unimaginabl horror and fisical ex- 
cruciation endlessly prolonged attached by popular ignor- 
ance and false theology to the doctrin of future retribu- 
tion * * * Do you believ in eternal punishment for your re- 
lations who hav died impenitent? Again, I say, God for- 
bid—again, I say, I fling from me with abhorrence such 
a creed as that. Let every Pharisee, if he will be angry 
with me — that I cannot and do not believ. Scripture will 
not let me ; my conscience, my reason, my faith in Christ, 
the voice of the spirit within my soul, will not let me ; God 
will not let me." 

So says Dean, Farrar and he knows Greek — without 



AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE, 1 55 

doubt the awful image of finality is introduced, says Mr. 
Gladstone, and he too, knows Greek. But is it not rather 
singular that millions hav died and other millions suffered 
on erth, in thinking of their beloved ded, and it now ap- 
pears to be all owing to the difference of opinion, as to the 
meaning of some Greek word? Let those of us who don't 
know Greek look up at the stars and into our own harts, 
and take the mild view until the scholars shall decide the 
fate cf those who will not or cannot accept Christ, and 
there ar both kinds. And if that endless horror which 
millions in Old Testament times never herd of and never 
got a chance of escaping from any more than heathens do 
to-day, hinges on the meaning of one word there is some- 
thing wrong. 

I hav told you the message I receivd. You can 
look upon it as another trap of the wicked one, another 
spring to catch foolish woodcocks, if you pleas, but I am 
glad to say that I can go around the streets and feel that 
somehow or other God will take care of all His children 
unless they ar determined not to be saved, altho we ar not 
all going to the same destiny, else why did Christ die? 
And yet in that far off, divine event we would like — 

What did Huxley, an evolutionist say about the pres- 
ent struggl? Just what Paul did without his belief. " If 
some great power would agree to make me always think 
what is true, and do what is right, on condition of being- 
turned into a sort of a clock and wound up every morn- 
ing, I should close with the offer." Do you want along, 
bitter struggl, or do you want peace? Not the peace that 
means stagnation, for it seems to me that even the angels 
must grow as the ages roll on, but it is not necessary to 
hav to fight with evil in order to grow. Growth is possibl 
without evil within you to drag you down, 

And the angels hav something to do, I hope, and be- 
liev. There ar some peopl who hav a very lazy concep- 
tion of heven. They ar of the same species as those who 



156 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

on erth would like to lie below the trees and let the 
peaches drop into their mouths. Who fills your mind from 
childhood up with good thots, and likewise with bad ones 
if you ar not careful? What does "My Father works 
hitherto and I work" mean? I was told that they were 
busy filling our minds with ideas, the only things that last- 
in the univers. Suppose our future work will be to train 
up those we hav left behind us? To fill their minds with 
good ideas? 

I herd the voices of men and women I had known when 
they were alive, but it is a matter of conjuncture to say 
that their spirits were there. It is very likely that they 
were, but afterwards when I doubted this and found that 
all kinds of voices could be taken, most of my encourage- 
ment came from those I did not know. 

To conclude then, throw aside Satan and fallen angels 
if you pleas and say the spirits I met ar but men and 
women in the future state, and one thing is evident tome; 
they hav fallen so low it seems as to be beyond the wish 
to rise. Evil is their good. But if they desire to rise at 
any time no matter how low they hav fallen it seems to 
me the way must be open. God must in His very nature 
help those who wish to rise. They represent life, and 
embodied or disembodied it does not matter. All life can 
rise, it seems to me. But it is clear to me too, that there 
ar terribl dangers for those who reject Christ, and you 
know what kind of punishment a life devoted only to evil 
brings even here. The wages of sin is deth ; the skull 
grins behind the flowers. 

It seems to me, then, that there will be a chance after 
deth, but think ot the present state of matters. There ar 
about 1,500,000.000 peopl on this globe now. The Talmu- 
dists used to say that each one had ninety-nine angels. 
Considering the number of peopl who hav past away from 
this erth there must be an escort of that size to each of 
us if it is necessary. They ar I believ literally swarming 



AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE. 157 

around us. Very well, then. Allow even one bad spirit 
for each inhabitant of the erth and what kind of a hellhav 
you? Tkey ar ferocious in their desire to work evil. I 
know that. There must be a hell for them, for it is in- 
side of them. I fear that they hav lost the desire to rise, 
yet it may not be so : there may always be a spark. But 
I am afraid that innumerabl millions hav gone in that di- 
rection, whether of our species or not I don't know any 
more than you do, but I think so. Keep away from the 
chance of that fate. Do you know men on erth who hav 
no desire to change? Why then be surprised on the other 
side? Free will, but in their case as with us too it often 
leads to deterioration. I believ they can rise ; I do not 
belie v God will crush beings down there any more than 
here ; but He wants intelligent beings who choose their 
own path and not machines. I do not believ it is neces- 
sary for any one to sink on the other side, but I hav been 
.amo'ng them and I know what they ar. 

Every atom in the univers has a hold upon every other 
atom, and , so it must be with spirit, it seems to me. 
Even the angels in heven must be influenct to some de- 
gree by the other ones when it may be their hole life is 
devoted to raising them and us. Not hurt by evil, but 
sorrowing over it. If we were all meek, can it be that 
we would raise up even the evil spirits? I hav often thot 
so. Christianity that will save us from the future struggl 
is a blessing ; churchianity is a curse. 

This view of the univers makes it a plesanter place 
for me to liv in. No matter how fiendish these beings 
ar, the very moment any one of them turns he is 
helpt to rise and grow towards good, and towards his 
Creator from whom he has wilfully and knowingly sepa- 
rated himself, and one thing that helps him to turn is the 
fact that for him as for us there ar no reproaches, no 
matter if he be a thousand times worse than our worst 
specimen. There is nothing but luv, the most terribl 



I58 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

force in the univers. A terribl struggl to rise abuv the 
lower nature, a hell inside of himself, but no reproaches 
as on erth among us. 

But if they set their heds in the other direction as many 
of us do on erth what can happen ? God does not con- 
demn them. They know, and we know, that the wages 
of sin is deth. We ar intelligent beings and not machines. 
Can it be that when they go to a certain point it means 
annihilation ? This theory would do away with Satan and 
his hosts for they must hav crost the line long before 
now, one would think. It is a foolish idea to suppose 
that when a man dies and chooses to go on sinning he is 
turned into the worst of demons at once. Growth down- 
ward takes time as well as growth in the right direction. 
That night they told me of the awful power that pulled 
us from hell to heven (See stray note No. 4 ) or vice versa 
they gave me also a long, strange recital of the task be- 
fore us that may pleas some to think of. In one sen's it 
is true. The awful power was growing, it appeard, 
every day and whenever it got to a certain point every 
one in the univers was to concentrate voo power on Satan 
and kill him and then the battl would be won. 

We might lern one lesson from their story. Say good- 
bye to Satan as a being, and let him represent sin. What 
would kill sin on erth ? Luv, if we had plenty of it. 
Withluv we could transform the erth in a few years. Luv 
is undoubtedly the greatest thing in the world. Luv is 
God. It would pay us to luv even the foolish millionaires. 
They ar their own worst enemies, altho they hurt us too, 
for self-sacrifice is the key-note of the univers, and not 
self-aggrandizement. 

We must murder evil. Suppose we look at the evolu- 
tionary theory for a minute. A growth .from the very 
lowest forms up to man, God " interfering' ' whenever He 
thot it necessary to make a change in a certain direction. 
From plant to animal there is a change that "natural 



AN EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE. I 59 

law " does not explain, and from animal to man there is 
another. Let us suppose that God breathed a spirit into 
man at a certain stage of his animal development which 
is typefied in the Garden of Eden story, knowing very 
well that there would be a "fall" before the temptations 
of evil spirits, knowing very well that he was so brutish 
from the animal side, altho the spirit were perfect for 
the time being that he could not but fall, and we may 
easily judge that the next step is to be, as the Bible points 
out, the subjugation of the flesh to the spirit. We must 
be born again. When we ar born again, we ar fild with 
luv, and that is the only thing that will conquer erth and 
hell too, it may be, altho I am half afraid to put it down. 

And what if, to anger the theologians, we make the 
angel with the sword who would not let poor Adam back 
to the garden stand for the consciousness that his new 
spirit gave him that whenever he let the flesh triumf , he 
would be punisht ? That spirit had to hav the upper 
hand and not flesh and that the evolution is not over yet ? 

We ar bound together. She may sweep past in her 
carriage " worth " twenty million dollars, but if she sees 
a helpless beggar in the street she cannot help being 
affected one way or another, for hell and heven ride in 
the carriage with her, black and white angels ar there, 
and they send impressions thru her hed, and just as she 
accepts or rejects them so she becomes, and there ds no 
escape, and so, too, with the beggar. 

From the higher standpoint, therefore, it is hardly 
worth while to rail at the millionaires. We should be 
content to tell them the truth, but 

'/It's hardly in a body's power 
To keep at times from being sour." 



H>0 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
What Think Ye of Christ ? 

* He luved me and gave himself for me ; 
Amazing* luv, amazing sacrifice . 
I'll take my harp down from the willow tree. 
And bid its notes in praise of Jesus rise. * 

•* Oh. when I stand 'mid yonder shining throng, 
And on fair Cainaan's coast my Savior see, 
I'll add this chorus to my swelling song,— 
* He luved me and gave Himself for me.' " 

—Fergus Ferguson, 

I herd all the Christian hymns sung. Who sung them ? 
If good spirits sung them what does it mean ? They know 
-whether the Bible is true or not and they ar well ac- 
quainted with science as we know it. 

I was discussing the subject of welth and its uses with 
a frend in the hermitage and I said to him, "What is the 
use talking of it ? We know from what is going on around 
us even if we do not say a word about history that there 
ar thousands of men and women in poverty to-day who 
would act just as the millionaires ar doing if they had the 
power. Human nature is pretty much the same all over 
the world and in all ages. Trust men with power, call 
them kings or anything els you pleas, and most of them 
-will oppress you," 

" Don't you see then, " came the message, "that Jesus 
Christ's plan of self-sacrifice is the only true way ? " 

Another day when I was in a favorabl condition the 
following message came to me when I was not expecting 
anything of the kind and when my.thots were miles away 
from the subject — " Christ died on the cross. His death 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? l6r 

brot redemption to men." That was all. I wrote down the 
exact words, as I often did and there they ar. 

What do these words mean ? Who sent them ? Would 
evil spirits send such a message ? Do they admire Jesus- 
of Nazareth ? Nothing can exceed the fierce, rabid hate, 
the frightful state of mind, that a sentient being can get 
into, that they showed me whenever I tried to keep my 
thots on Christ as the Savior of the world. It was worst- 
on this subject; from beginning to end there was mock- 
ery of Christ and His work. Do not let us misunderstand 
our position, The Bible is true. His deth brot redemp- 
tion to men. 

An impulsiv frend of mine says that Christ was either 
what he prof est to be or the worst liar who ever lived on 
erth. I do not think that these messages I receivd ar 
necessary. I do not believ that we ar ment to hav com- 
munication with the unseen world except in the way God 
has appointed. But there they ar as I receivd them. 
Take care of your steps, lest like the base Judean you* 
too, throw away a perl richer than all your tribe. 

During the erlier weeks they tried hard to get me to 
believ that Christianity stood on the same basis as the 
other religions. I could not understand why I felt such 
a peculiar sensation when they sneerd at "the Christians. ? * 
It was hypnotized into me, and it came at every mention: 
of the name. The two sides, both evil spirits, kept up the 
mock debate for some time day after day. u Do not be 
afraid," the one side said, "you ar perfectly secure-" 
" Don't you see by looking around you in the world that 
the other religions ar far stronger than Christianity? Those 
who followed Christ on erth, of cours, stand by that side 
here, but all religions ar the same. We ar gradually 
defeating the ' Christians ' on this side." 

"Do not believ that. We hav alredy conquered. The 
Christians ar gaining here as well as beside you and all 
is well." . _... 



l6l OIK INSF.F.N' COMPANIONS. 

The effort of both sides was to make me believ that 
Christ was not divine in order to tell yon, for they knew 
I meat to write my experience. I soon came to under- 
stand it. 

Btit for months I listened to hymns and advice and talk 
of one kind and another all on the basis of the Christian 
belief. The spirits around us know whether it is true or 
not. What does it mean ? And as for the men who doubt 
whether there is a God or not^— ! 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Stray Notes. 
" When found make a note of it;" — Captain Cuttle. 

i. "It is nonsens to suppose that the foolish men who ar 
coming thru into this world will get any special revela- 
tions. What is told them has been better told before. If 
God wanted to give any information to His creatures He 
could take any man who was willing to be used as His in- 
strument and there ar plenty of such men who do His work 
without any of this torture." 

2. Mental suggestion is a curious way of influencing 
men- — -curious to those who do not believ that wear so 
acted upon. When I began to write a few hours daily I 
had quite a struggl with it. I came to understand it then. 
I wrote on quickly in shorthand and tried to keep my 
mind stedily on the subject insted of listening to them, 
but at the least relaxation a word would be suggested 
which would completely change the meaning of the sen- 
tence, and I would hav it down before I notict the trick. 

It was not imagination that thrust in these words I did 
not want. In all my previotis writing I had not been in 



STRAY NOTES. 1 63 

the habit of putting down black when I ment white. 
What I was trap t into putting down was nothing to what 
I checkt. 

In humming a song or hymn to cheer myself I had to 
keep my mind concentrated on the meaning of the lines. 
The words were changed almost unconsciously if I let my 
mind run on another subject, and it ran on other subjects 
occasionly just as yours does, only I found out who ran it 
for me and you may still doubt. "The shouts of them 
that triumf," in "Jerusalem the golden," for exampl, was 
often turned to "the shouts of them that perish. " "And 
they who with their leader hav conquered in the fight." 
I sometimes hummed "and they who with their leader 
ar conquered in the fight. " In Addison's beautiful hymn 
"how ar thy servants blest O, Lord, "the line "and breath 
in tainted air, " in a careless moment would come "and 
hreath in painted air. " 

I giv these lines simply as illustrations, but I was trapt 
so often that I had to be very cautious for a time. I do 
not mean that I am out of danger yet, any more than you 
ar. That is how Satan does part of his work. He may 
not change the words, but he suggests an angry thot and 
works on your nervs until you boil, and the water is spilt 
on the ground and cannot be gathered up. Repeating 
that too often? "Keep hammering away. " says some one, 
"Humanity is stupid," and I want you to lern the lesson. 
During the two outbreaks I had used language that was 
foreign to my lips in my normal state. I remember sit- 
ing quietly in the hermitage after the troubl swearing to 
^myself without the least sign of passion or astonishment. 
How did it happen? It is wrong, I suppose, but I cannot 
help smiling as I think of it. My mind for that short time 
was in the possession of those who like to spred evil lang- 
uage on the face of the erth. That is what it ment. 

I saw a very estimabl, obliging man in the hermitage 
who went around swearing to himself as if it were his 



164 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



business. When spoken to he came to himself instantly, 
red the newspapers as intelligently as any man, and was 
interested in what he red, but if he glanct over the paper 
from one part to another without keeping his mind con- 
centrated, it very often happened that his voice was busy 
at the old work. 

I saw several cases of the same kind altho none so pro- 
nounct. If spoken to in a way to fix their attention they 
became different beings. They were themselves insted 
of some one els. How does it come about? We hav herd 
a good deal about duality of consciousness in these days 
— there is, according to some, an unknowm being in all of 
us who tells us marvelous things if we will only listen to 
his whispers. It won't work. There will be another be- 
ing inside of us beyond a doubt if we let him get in, but 
it is not advisabl. The true explanation is to be found in 
Good, old-fashioned, New Testament, demoniac posses- 
sion. They want to get inside of us to use our voices, and 
our bodies, and our minds to work destruction, and those 
who attend public entertainments where they show forth 
their powers ar simply furthering the evil work. 

Dean Farrar, in his "Life of Christ, " writes of demoniac 
possession, and says that the evil spirits can be exorcized 
by prayer. He says also that the original does not war- 
rant fasting thru which much damage has come. 

Do you. smile at New Testament demoniacs? They, 
were probably what we would call hypnotic subjects, says 
a writer who discust the subject the other day. It is very 
likely that they were, but hypnotism involves a good deal 
if the influence is not removed. The writers of the New 
Testament did not hav a diploma from the Evergreen- 
College of Medicin, nor did they need one. 

Possession is true and so is obession. Why did the in- 
fernal chorus stop sometimes when I was at the point of 
desperation? If my imagination made me walk from cor- 
ner to corner vainly trying to escape how did it happen. 



STRAY NOTES. 1 65 

that I could so control it on the instant as to make it stop 
working? The voices stopt becausthey had to. They were 
ordered to stop. How does it happen that if I were a com- 
plete fool I could with some troubl bring back the sing- 
ing? I know I am repeating again, but it is from the in- 
tellectual standpoint that my worry comes. Imaginary 
voices at the end of the nineteenth century! The thing is 
degrading from the point of view of intellectual attain- 
ment. 

3. "And so you think it is possibl to cast out demons? 
Well, suppose you try that man at your side. We hav pos- 
session of him as well as of you/' 

He was sitting on the same seat looking out a window 
with his back toward me, but without a word he turned 
round instantly and looking me straight in the eye began 
to curse. "I know you, and what you mean. " 

I was too much surprised to say anything, but I left 
him gently to himself. I had an idea that he had some 
one directing his internal machinery and I thot it as well 
to move. 

4. Communication came in three ways — by voices, by 
writing on the brain, and by impression, feeling or tele- 
pathy. Telepathy may 'not be the correct word, for I am 
inclined to think that the agent at the other end is at our 
side. 

It is a state of feeling. I used tolaf at the word "sens. s 
When a man "senst" anything I used to think that he was 
becoming an ultra-refined being whose proper dwelling 
place was a hermitage of one kind or another, but it is the 
right word to employ. You sens it — you feel it. It is dif- 
ferent from thinking, even when Satan pulls the strings. 

Take a pargraf of a newspaper, for exampl. containing 
several clear and distinct ideas. We cannot think, it is 
said, unless we employ words, but the mind travels so 
fast that the ideas go thru the brain like a flash. This is 



l66 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

the ordinary way of thinking, but I w senst " the paragraf 
so much faster than by this method that I knew what 
was coming before the words had anything like time to 
shape themselves in my mind. I had to take time to 
spell them out, as it were, until I got to the end, or to 
express it in another way I felt the hole of the ideas con- 
veyed without the necessity of using words at all or 
waiting to let them come. Do you need words to express 
anger or luv ? It is a state of feeling. I easily knew 
what my unseen companions wanted me to understand 
without the necessity of going about it in the old round 
about way. 

Some doctor, I belie v, — there ar several clever, capabl 
men among the doctors. Altho quite a number of them 
hav rather bizaare ideas on certain subjects — has said that 
if he could only get hold of our system in the right way 
he could make us feel sad or merry as he pleased. He 
must he a hypnotist. He wants to make us sens. And 
I for one beg to be excused. 

What if in the world to come the method of communi- 
cation will be by feeling insted of by words ? What if 
Faber came nearer the truth than he imagined when he 
wrote, 

" Where loyal harts and true, 
Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture thru and thru 
In God's most holy sight." 

It is digressing again, but according to a pretty theory 
that I herd from my invisibl frends the first week at the 
hermitage we ar all bound together in the future life and 
in this life too in such a way that if one suffers all groan 
in unison, and if one is merry we all smile. This view 
may delight those who luv to go elswhere than the Bible 
for their information, but as I remember it there were 
some slight drawbacks. 

There was some great hypnotic power at work— some 



STRAY NOTES, 1 67 

awful force that drew you from heven if you were not 
strong enuf to resist and planted you cheek by jowl with 
some of your erring companions of the past. Of cours, 
as the tide turned you might get out of your troubl, but 
there were risks. Upon the issue of the awful batl being 
waged thruout the univers was to be decided whether the 
future life for us all was to be in heven or hell. Hell, I 
was assured, was almost as enjoyabl as heven. You think 
I was a fool to wonder at some of it ? Ar you sure you 
do not belong to the tribe yourself ? Many ar living with- 
out a belief in any future state, but I never was so 
extremely foolish as that yet. And what is sin on erth 
now but such an awful force that draws you from heven 
to hell 4 and what is luv ? 

When you sens, it is as if the atmosf ere around you were 
charged with ideas and somehow or other they were prest 
into your hed in a mass. Enuf of it, Sancho Quixote, 
for they ar a-smilin' at you. 

5. We read a good deal in these times about develop- 
ing the sixth sens. Whenever anything approaches you 
thru the sixth sens get your nervs in order as soon as pos- 
sibl. When your dedly enemies approach you thru the 
sixth sens treat them as you would any other enemy — that 
is, get rid of them as soon as you can. 

If God had ment us to liv in two worlds at one time He 
would hav given us faculties for entering into the invisibl 
one around us, and we would not hav been under the 
necessity of " developing " a new sens, but when you 
dream all night of evolution something is bound to follow. 

Go out into the sunlight and you cannot help feeling 
the heat. Get your nervs into a certain condition and 
you cannot help the approach of spirits. 

6. The Reverend Minot J. Savage, the Unitarian, has 
studied the occult world, from the outside, I regret to 
say, as fools like company as well as wise men, and the 



168 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

following- excerpt from his Easter sermon of '96 may help 
you to understand how it is possibl for some men to hear 
voices inaudibl to others. It is quoted from the Niw York 
Sun of April 19th. If you read it carefully you may even 
understand how ''sensing" is possibl. " Thrilling" with 
an intensity of life " he says. That is correct, I believ, 
and fits in with Faber's rapture thru and thru, and vSaneho- 
Quixote's sensing. But make way for his reverence. 

" I believ that those who hav past thru the experience 
called deth liv in space and occupy space as much I do. 
Ar they material ? Yes, in one sens they ar * * * I 
believ that the souls of those that we call ded ar not 
unclothed, but, in the language that Paul used, ar 
clothed upon. 

I believ that they possess bodies not as real as these, 
but unspeakabl more real, thrilling with an intensity of 
life of which at present we ar perhaps utterly unabl to- 
conceiv. Is there anything unscientific about it? No. 
There is no scientific knowledge abl to discredit a belief 
like this. It is perfectly rational. 

We know perfectly well that the greatest, the mightiest 
forces of what we call the natural univers ar both invisibL 
and intangibl. We know that it is the very smallest, tini- 
est part of the real world that we can see with ourpresen 
eyes. We know that it is only the smallest, tiniest part 
of the infinite vibrations of the univers that produce in us. 
the sens of hearing." (Mark that, doctor. Now, infidel, I 
hay thee on the hip!) "If we had ears more acute, even 
Mr. Huxley tells us the silences of the opening flowers 
in the garden would seem to us as loud as a thunder 
storm. It is not that there ar no vibrations, only that our 
ears ar not adapted to take them up." Sancho Quixote 
thinks that his medical frends might as well surrender, or 
at least lay aside that cutting pride. 

"De leur morgue tranchante, 
Rien ne nous garantit. " 



STRAY NOTES. 1 69 

It is wrong to speak in church, but Sancho feels rather 
gay when the one scientific man starts to maul the other 
while he applauds the heretic. But to conclude, — 

"So of the vibrations which produce the sens of sight. 
There is an infinity of them thruout the univers, only our 
eyes at present ar not adapted to being affected by them. 
That is all. We ar too commonly the fools of our eyes 
and ears. We assume that we can see and hear and feel 
verything that really is; while every poorest scientific 
man on erth will tell you that there may be an infinity of 
life in every direction with which our present senses do 
not bring us into any conscious contact." 

"I believ, then, that as the result of our thinking and 
our feeling and our hiving and our hating that what may 
be called a fisical body is being built up in us, organized 
day by day. In the process of deth we ar releast from 
this outward shell very much as the butterfly is releast 
from its chrysalis. There has been going on thru the 
whole length of life of the cocoon the organization of an- 
other, and to us invisibl, form within. By and by it breaks 
open, and the life comes forth and enters upon another 
stage of its career. 

I believ something akin to this is going on within us, 
and that deth means the breaking open of the chrysalis 
and the escaping out into this larger life, and that we en- 
ter on that life — and here is the tremendous moral power 
of a belief like this — just the kind of men and women that 
we hav made ourselves by our thots, our emotions, our 
actions here, only that there, as here, is infinite opportun- 
ity thru suffering, if need be, thru whatever experience 
is necessary, for study, for growth, for ascent towards 
the highest." 

The lerned doctor has spoken like a book, but he trips 
lip at the end. Evolution has got him by the heels, too, 
only he is more cautious than Sancho. 

Is it not possibl to escape the struggl of good and evil 



I 7° OVR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

by entering the kingdom of heven as littl children? The 
doctor says no, and his belief is shared by a good many. 
Perhaps those who don't read, don't think, don't know, 
and don't care to know, ar a littl harsh in their Judgments. 
I, for one. am not inclined to torture men eternally if they 
cannot believ in the New Testament. "Hav faith in God," 
says Dean Farrar. Amen. God is luv, I herd in days of 
troubl, and I read it in the Bible. I am afraid I could not 
luv Him so much if I thot that all His creatures would not 
get a chance to rise even after deth, thru plenty of suffer- 
ing*, I fear. 

7. By a singular coincidence somewhat similar to that 
noted in chapter thirteen, I put down the lucky number 
seven at the head of this stray note, and I found to my 
surprise that I was indeted for a good illustration to a 
man from Germany, Germany, lerned, indefatigabl, deep- 
thinking Germany, as Carlyle calls her, is always redy 
when we need her, and her son is in luck this time for the 
number is to his credit. As a supplement to Mr. Savage's 
remarks the following information may help some to un- 
derstand what kind of a univers we liv in. Listen to the 
Teuton then.— "Suspend a pendulum in a dark room and 
set it swinging at the rate of thirty beats to the second, 
and you will hear the lowest note in music. Keep up the 
motion until it reaches about forty thousand beats and 
you will then hear the highest note the human ear can 
grasp. The pendulum has given forth every note of music 
in its progress from thirty beats to forty thousand. 

" vSuppose that you hav the power to keep up the 
motion until it reaches six billion strokes to the second, 
you will see a dull red light; and if from six billion you 
run it up to fifteen you will see all the colors of the rain- 
bow, until at the fifteenth universal darkness buries all. 
Now, then," continues our scientific frend, who is some- 
thing of an occulist himself, '-between the forty thousand 
vibrations representing the highest sound and the six 



STRAY NOTES. 171 

billion representing the dullest light there is an enormous 
gap— an ocean of wave motions which ar now beyond our 
perception, but which ar known to exist, for there ar no 
sudden breaks in nature. ' Tyndall was the first to point 
this out, and to suggest that within this vast chasm- of 
forces — forces which no eye can see and no ear can per- 
ceiv — we must seek for an explanation of the mysterious 
potentialities know as electricity and magnetism." 

That is very interesting. How, then, did I hear sing- 
ing that is inaudibl to you ? Was it because my physical 
condition was such that I could reach higher than the 
forty thousand beats of the pendulum ? And why was 
the singing an octave higher, or can I venture to say two 
octaves, it was so piercingly clear and thin ? And yet 
the bass voices were deeper and richer than erthly ones. 

I came to know my nervous condition as exactly as if 
I had been registered. The voices came closer or went 
further away as I became more or less affected. It is 
true that they acted in the same way at the same time, as 
during the fir^t days when they seemed to be a mile dis- 
tant and again close at hand, but there came a time when 
there was no change of that kind ; they kept always as 
close as they could. 

Then how do you account for the fact that the voices 
ceast to troubl me when I was in the open air months 
before I got rid of them when below a roof ? Does it 
soothe the nervs to liv in the o'pen air ? Ar women who 
seldom go outside to look at the sky injuring their nervs ? 
Ar all houses haunted ? 

" All houses wherein men hav livd and died 
Ar haunted houses. Thru the open door 
The harmless fathoms on their errands glide, 
With feet that make no sound upon the floor. 

"- The spirit world around this world of sens 
Floats like an atmosfere, and everywhere 
Wafts thru these erthly mists and vapors dens, 
A vital breth of more ethereal air . "— L©n<3fklt.ow. 



i ; 2 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



After reading the illustrations of the two lerned doc- 
tors elincht by the verses of the poet who ' ' senses " things 
easier than his practical brethren, we should be redy to 
acknowledge that there may really be forces in the 
imivers that the microscope cannot reveal to us. 

8. The microscope may no the abl to do it, but what of 
the plethysmograf ? It is the brave man's policy to look 
danger in the face. Sancho Quixote is aware that the 
doctors ar hard to kill. While he has been investigating 
in one direction they hav been busy in another, and like 
the skillful tacticians that they ar it was only the other 
day that they uncovered their batteries. 

The scientists say that we cannot mesure and weigh 
everything around us, and the faculty refuse to yield. 
But that they ar near the end of their tether is evident, 
for they hav now begun to talk of the " exact mesure of 
mentality," and hav invented the plethysmograf, the 
kymografion, the neumograf, and the ergograf , and they 
ar redy for work. This is cheerful news. 

They ar going to mesure our thots and our emotions 
as easily as a tailor mesures a piece of cloth. Man is a 
funny little creature. He wants to weigh mind now. In 
Dean Swift's time he was busy trying to extract sun- 
beams out of cucumbers. 

The professor thus proudly explains how it is done — 
< ' These experiments which for the first time introduce 
weight and measure into the relms of thot, may lead to 
other experiments having a scientific value. One devel- 
opment may be another and more destructiv blow at the 
theosofical and spiritualistic and hypnotic explanations of 
fenomenathat really depend upon this fact of the extreme 
fallibility of the senses." 

There you be, all cut and dry. This is medical science 
at the end of the nineteenth century. The Indian 
median man knew better. O, Arturo, Arturo, compa- 



STRAY NOTES. If£ 

trioto mio, a laf is a good thing for us all and you hav 
supplied it. 

Now, I wish foolish men and women would turn awajr 
from theosofy and spiritism and turn to Christianity,, 
but if we hav to depend upon the plethysmograf and the 
kymografion, whatever they ar. for the destruction of 
these two beliefs, our name, as the Arabian poet said, will 
be mud. Try another line, doctor, 

" Nor deem the irrevocabl past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain. 
If, rising on its wrecks at last, 
To something- nobler we attain." 

That is a vers I like to think of in these days and you 
might as well lern it by hart. 

The names of these instruments, even with the amended 
speling, ar enuf to condemn the whole theory. The man 
who named them showed a sad lack of gumption. The 
plethysmograf indeed ! And the ergograf and the 
kymografion, and the neumograf! What a piece of 
work is man. How infinite in reason, says Colonel Ham- 
let. 

Why not thepolywog, and the ichthysaurus or any other* 
chunk or monolith of poly sylabic grandeur and rinparalleld 
imperishabl magnificence? The howling idiosyncrasies of 
these medical inventors, the osteological, dolichocefalic' 
nonsens that they talk drive Sancho Quixote nearly off 
the hinges. 

9. Is it any wonder that men ar lerning to distrust 
science of all kinds? M. Brunetiere, of the — Revue des 
Deux Mondes, the "Saturday Review" tells us, has lighted 
upon a frase which is having a run of success in France 
such as he could hardly hav anticipated. It is "the bank- 
ruptcy of science." 

"According to M, Brunetiere science is bankrupt, but 
there ar some who declare that science was never so pros- 
perous as now. M. Brunetiere's frase, however, merely 



174 OUR UNSEKN COMPANIONS. 

refers to the materialistic filosofy which treats as trivial or 
baneful all speculation that is beyond the range of fisical 
proof. A brief quotation from his articl, which has been 
so much discust, will suffice to show exactly what he means. 

li 'From a Darwinism, barely assured of the truth of its 
principls, or from a physiology that is still rudimentary, 
we may appeal to a more extended Darwinism, or to a 
more lerned physiology ; but in the meantime we must liv 
a life not merely animal, and no science of to-day can show 
us how to do this. ' 

"Science, then," the Review goes on to say, "according 
to M. Brunetiere, is bankrupt in the sens that it has failed 
to satisfy what is in the nature of man, or to explain the 
mystery that surrounds him. 

"Probably in no other country do such rapid changes 
take place in the atmosfere that is formed by the perpet- 
ual whirling and grinding of the wheels of the human 
mind as in Prance. Ten or twelv years ago M. Brune- 
tiere's articl would hav been receivd with such blustering 
derision that the approving voice would hav been drowned 
by the noise. But a markt change has come about in the 
filosofical drift of the French mind of late. Voltairianism 
is very nearly ded. The polished mockery and refined but 
bitter cyncism in regard to spiritual beliefs and specula- 
tions which were so much relisht by an epicurean bour- 
geoisie, hav quite gone out of fashion. 

"The fact to be noted as a mental fenomenon, to be 
filosofically pondered, is that this most skeptical of cent- 
uries is ending in France,— the fatherland of free thot — 
in a disposition of mind which, if not Christian, is more 
colored by idealism than materialism. 

"The very keen interest that so many French peopl of 
the intellectual class hav of late years taken in Buddism, 
occultism and spiritualism (spiritism it is more correctly 
termed in France), altho by no means approved by the 
Catholic clergy, is nevertheless a symptom of the reaction 



STRAY NOTES. I 75 

from tlie-Vbltarian mood which lasted so long, and which 
became so very much in ernest, so different from Vol- 
taire's humor that, had he livd long enuf, he might hav 
repudiated his own discipls. The youth of the schools hav 
not grown pious, but Aguste Comte, Renan and Darwin 
hav lost the hold that they had on the students, and their 
increasing "mysticism" is noted with pain and disgust by 
the skeptics who were born erlier in the century, and 
whose filosofiical opinions were fashioned by a very differ- 
ent wave of thot. 

"But contemporary literature is perhaps the best mirror 
in which to see reflected that new movement of the French 
mind which has led M. Brunetiere to speak of the bank- 
ruptcy of science. Several writers of note could be named 
who, from being the thorogoing materialists that they 
were some ten or fifteen years ago, hav with stedily in- 
creasing boldness been reaching toward an idealism that 
is almost, if not quite, religious. 

"A writer in the Figaro has gone so far as to point to the 
new direction taken by M. Zola's mind as confirmatory of 
the opinions exprest by M. Brunetiere in his remarkabl 
articl. What, however, we may be quite sure of is that 
some great change must hav taken place in France for so 
keen a man of the world as M. Zola, and one so richly 
endowed with the faculty of scenting a subject that will 
prove remunerativ in the dress of fiction, to cast all his 
literary energy first upon the Pyrenean village that has 
been made a town by Bernadette, and then upon the city 
of the popes." 

10. What the great realist himself thinks of the age he 
livs in and the change of public opinion may be judged 
by the following extract writn some two or three 
years ago : — 

" To tell the truth, I think all the means tried insuffi- 
cient to stop the rising tide of anarchist doctrin. What, 



176 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

I am askt, will be a preventativ ? Well, I, who hav fot for 
positivism, after thirty years of struggling find that my 
convictions hav been shaken. Religions faith would pre- 
vent the propagation of such theories ; but has it not 
almost disappeard now-a-days ?" 

Science does not appear to fill M. Zola's me sure fulls 
enuf. " Scientists of repute," says a scrap of paper 
found floating on the air the other day, "now assure us 
that science does not advance us one singl step as to the 
kowledg*e of the final caus. The aggressiv scientific man 
of a generation ago has now become the agnostic if he 
does not belie v in the Bible as of old." 

ii. But while many of the scientists ar resting on their" 
oars, with their boat anchored waiting for a new compass 
that is long, long in coming, the men who keep a reason, 
that knows too littl to be an entirely safe guide, subor- 
dinate to a faith that believs much hav taken hart of grace- 
once more and ar pulling for the old haven with a flowing 
sea behind them. Listen to this from the Boston " Con- 
gregationalist" and contrast it with the pessimistic utter- 
ance of M. Zola : 

" The religious thot of the last decade has been distin- 
guisht by a revolt from creeds, by impatience with dog- 
matic teaching and by a disposition to investigate even 
the most fundamental doctrins of the Christian faith, 

"While the grasp of the popular mind on creeds has 
been loosening, interest in present life has grown intens. 
Problems of individual duty and destiny hav given place 
to those of society and government. By way of con- 
trast, dwelling on the unseen and the future world hav 
been held up as unpractical and insignificant." 

As vSancho Quixote is engineering this book, just hav 
patience while he interjects a remark here — one that is- 
straight from the shoulder, for the old Adam is swelling 
up inside of him. Many religious papers, many minis- 



STRAY NOTES. 177 

ters, ar strongly disliked by numbers of intelligent peopl 
who know something of the conditions of modern society 
becaus they ar so very ethereal in tone that they seldom 
care to discuss the starvation problem, They want to 
gloss it over, and keep peace in the family, and it will not 
work. They want to keep on good terms with men whom 
Christ would scourge if he were on erth to-day. We do 
not intend to be side-trackt by such ethereal talk. We do 
not bury the hatchet that way. Satan is not to rule, 
altho he speaks from a pulpit. 

I consider the next world very important, very much 
more important than this, as I consider the palace more 
important than the vestibule. I hope that is plain enuf 
to any one who has red thus far without saying more. 
But I hav recently had a severe reminder that body and 
mind ar so intimately connected that more than ever, 
and I hav been called a radical in the past, I am con- 
vinct that the man who will not take sides on this ques- 
tion as to whether one man is to continue to acquire mill- 
ions unjustly while another is to die of starvation is not 
worthy of being listened to — is a coward and a trimmer. 
It often seems to me an impertinenc for us to pray, 
"Give us this day our daily bred," unless in a spirit of 
thankfulness, God has given us such a world to liv in, 
overflowing with corn and fruit that starvation or want 
should be impossibl for a man willing to work, and yet 
some of our frends stand in their pulpits and defend men 
who ar squeezing the life-blood out of human beings in- 
sted of telling them the truth. 

Don't make any mistake, gentlmen. There ar two 
kinds of Christianity, the true and the false. Remember 
that we hav a body as well as a soul. "Problems of 
society and government " ar still going to disturb your 
welthy hearers, and the poorer brethren ar still going 
to ask if men who crush their fellows ar in their 
right place when they walk around with the basket on 



IjvS Ol'K UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Sunday. But, now that we hav called a halt just as we 
were galloping off to heven, forgetting that we still livd 
on erth, we shall proceed, after excusing our littl out- 
burst, by saying that God gave us reason, and He means 
us to use it. He believs in order: change your swinish 
arrangements to conform to His laws, or take the conse- 
quences. 

Unformulated but most positiv creeds hav been form- 
ing, whose susbtance is responsibility to and for men 
rather than accountability to God. But social relations ar 
stabl only when conscience rules, and conscience is with- 
out authority unless it can appeal to God. Wherever men 
ar interested in living aright they want to know about 
God, and they want what is known of God stated in terms 
which they can understand. They want to know what 
evidences there ar that He has made revelations to men 
and w 7 hat ar those revelations. They hunger to believ and 
welcome authoritativ statements of faith. 

"There ar indications that the time is alredy at hand 
when such statements will be welcomed and defended as 
they hav not been hitherto in this generation. The peopl 
ar growing weary of critical discussions of religous themes. 
They do not respond as hartily as they hav done to the 
questioning tone from pulpit and platform. They ar com- 
ing to listen eagerly for the utterance that is positiv — " 
Do you understand now why the labor problem is up for 
settlment in all countries? Becaus the intelligent men 
in the ranks and out of them ar positiv — "that rings with 
the fervor of belief in God, holy and supreme, offering 
pardon to lost sinners thru Jesus Christ His Son. We con- 
fidently expect a revival of dogma. This word may con- 
vey opprobrious meaning to some, but in its generally 
accepted meaning of authorativ religious teaching we do 
not hesitate to use it. We look for strong declarations, 
with the tone of authority, of the essential doctrins of 
Christian faith; and for responses to them in renewed in- 









STRAY NOTES. 



179 



terest in divine and hevenly things and in renewed lives. 
Renewed interest in God and in men's relations to Him 
and in human destiny cannot fail to strengthen the fellow- 
ship as well as advance the knowledge of those who believ 
and obey him. With the revival of dogma will come a re- 
vival of faith, hope and ltiv. " 

You hav been led further afield than you anticipated 
perhaps, but you ar aware by this time that Sancho Quix- 
ote is a littl unsettld in his ways and likewise in his spel- 
ing. You hav had the plesure of reading the views of a 
few of our fellow creatures on subjects that sensibl peopl 
ar interested in. Like the voices I herd they jangl occa- 
sionlaly. Science and reason at the old fight, but they 
speak each in his own tung and charm us like the 
sirens. 

" All the melodies mysterious 

Thru the dreary darkness chanted, 
Thots in attitude imperious 
Voices soft and deep and serious 

Words that whisperd, song's that haunted!" 

12. A littl variety is agreeabl to most of us, and before 
I plunge you into the society of the hevy weights again I 
shall tell you some funny littl incidents that happened to 
me — funny to you, that is. 

I hav often herd my grandfather tell a story back in — 
vSpain — that may serv to illustrate how every littl incident, 
every word was siezed hold of by my unseen companions. 

An acquaintance of his got hungry one night and scaled 
a wall to steal some appls. The gardener was watching on 
the other side and as soon as he saw the man's hands on 
the top of the wall he swung his rake and pinned him 
down where he lay. I may remark here in case you hav 
not quite lerned your lesson that the gardener was tem- 
porarily possest by an evil spirit. 

"Sancho," they used to say to me, "hav you forgotten 
that story the old man told about the rake? Well, that is 



l8o OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS, 

just how we hav you fixt at present. A beautiful illustra- 
tion." 

I had red somewhere — in one of Carlyle's books, I think 
— of canaries being trained to fire cannons, and they made 
a good deal of this illustration. "A very simpl thing for 
the canary to set the cannon off but the silly littl creature 
had no idea of what its act ment, and yon ar just like it. 
You hav set off a hole park of artillery, you stupid canary . 
You hav no idea of what it ment when you stuck your 
ears thru into this world. Poor littl canary bird ! Poor 
littl canary ! We fear that you ar going to get your wings 
singed." 

13. "Voices ar not good things for men and women 
to listen to, for the simpl reason that those who listen to 
them don't like to do much els and this is a tmivers where 
every one should work." 

If a man does not work, says the apostl, neither shall 
he eat; but in these piping times those who work least eat 
best, or rather ^get the best things to eat, which is a curi- 
ous arrangement. And what of the ministers, apostolic 
succession kind included? But this is unfair, I shall soon 
be in bad standing with the black graces, for I like the 
traditional lawyers as littl as the doctors or ministers. 

But what do the curled darlings say about this theory of 
work? Is Tolstoy's idea that every man should do enuf 
manual w r ork to support himself correct? Again I touch 
upon a sore spot, for altho Paul made'tents and his hands 
smelt of tar his successors ar not noted for doing much in 
that line. They hav to ride bicycles now for "exercise/' 
That first century had some drawbacks. 

14, " Once for all there ar no reproaches in heven. Do 
not believ anything of that kind. It is all done for a bad 
purpose. There is nothing but luv there. Pay no atten- 
tion to past mistakes but keep your eyes to the future, 



STRAY NOTES. 



i8r 



and all will yet be well. You ar expected to do some- 
thing" for yourself to get out of your troubl. Keep your 
mind occupied with something els than voices as much as 
possibl. We ar not expected to do everything." 

" Do you swallow that stuff ? Do you not yet under- 
stand that you ar caught, and that is simply to keep up 
your spirits as long as possibl. They know the end of it 
all as well as we do. You ar bot with a price and cannot 
escape." 

15. One night last winter I lay in a trance and saw a 
full-rigged ship sailing across the ocean. All the sails 
were set and a fair cours lay before her, but she rolled 
from side to side before me as if she would founder, and 
as I wonderd what it ment when I awoke, the voices 
shouted in derision — " Is your pilot 011 board, vSancho 
Quixote ? Is your pilot on board ? You ar drifting on 
the rocks." And many a time afterwards I was assailed 
with the question, " Is your pilot still on board ?" 

You will accuse me of moralizing like the ministers,, 
but sit down quietly and consider the question, " Is your 
pilot on board ?" 

Perhaps, if you don't consider it you may hear the 
question in the future as I herd a great many things I 
had forgotten, and it will not be plesant. It will simply 
be unplesant to the last degree. I know. I mean after 
you hav "taken the leap," as they exptest it, and not 
before. 

" Tirez le Rideau, la farce est jouee." Not quite. 
Only the opening act: 

" Sunset and evening- star 

And one clear call for me ; 
And may there be no moaning- of the bar 
When I put out to sea. 
***** 

'* And tho from out our bourne of time and place 
The floods may bear me far. 
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face 
When I have crost the bar. '* 



182 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

1 6. ."The conclusion of both sides is that you must 
stop praying for six months. Every appeal you make for 
help will be counted against you. You cannot be put on 
the same basis as those who hav accepted Christ on erth. 
You accepted Him after you knew the terrors, and that 
kind of conversion will not pass here. One, two, three, 
four, five, six — twelve — -thirty words. Precisely. We 
do not intend that you shall hav peace while you ar doing 
something forbidden. Prayers ar at an end in hell and 
men who pray ar punisht. 

1 ' In the first place, you do not pray in faith, fully expect- 
ing what you ask for, and in the next you ask in the 
name of Jesus Christ and that will not be accepted 
from you." 

"Sancho Quixote," came an ernest voice that I knew 
well, the voice of a man still alive, " don't you see yet 
that we hav all come thru into the occult world against 
the commands of God ? The damage we hav done is in- 
calculabl. Yes, I knew you back there. It is awful that 
I, a minister of the gospel, hav to stand in my pulpit 
preaching with my hart breaking. 

" I will do the best I can for you, but we cannot pray 
thru Jesus Christ. We must pray to the Christ that is in 
each of us. There is a Christ in each of us partly de- 
velops and we must pray to that part." 

' < That is correct, Sancho Quixote;" came the other 
voice that I know well, altho I hav never listened to it in 
the flesh, "he has told you the truth, and we must do 
what we can thru one another. " 

That was during the erly days, of cours, when I was 
under the influence and half excusabl for believing the 
one minute and lafing at the folly of it all the next, but 
during convalescence — if the doctors will allow the ex- 
pression after what has been writn- — I red a littl 
pamflet which seems to preach the same doctrin in cold 
blood. Possum up a gum tree. Old wives' fables copy- 



STRAY NOTES. I #3 

righted by Satanas. How do you like the source of the 
information that you get about your ded f rends or your 
living ones ? O. yes, only ignorant peopl deny that they 
giv information, but how much is it worth, and is it right 
to take it ? 

17. But they were frolicsome too My frend was not 
altogether wrong. I had to laf many a time at their re- 
marks. They can be witty when the humor strikes them. 
A hermitage is not the best place to laf, but some of the 
patients, I can well belie v, laf becaus they cannot help 
it — there is a method in their lafter altho some of their 
frends think it is a sign of vacancy. Suppose the nervs ar 
gently pulled so that only an anchorite could keep grave. 
Suppose they really listen to something they imagin to 
be funny ? 

I would be fighting successfully for a time and keeping 
them at bay, too much interested in my writing to dis- 
tinguish the words when a new departure would be made. 
They would spring in at the least sign of a wish to rest 
and shoot the sentence in by the telegrafic route in ad- 
vance of, or at the same time as the voices, so that I could 
not fail to catch the meaning even if the words were indis- 
tinct: " Sisters, what is to be done with Sancho Quixote ? 
He is clearly going to dominate us. He is gaining the upper 
hand. Shout it thru the occult that Sancho is gaining 
the day." 

The droll tone sometimes, the mock-hopeless, despair- 
ing accent at others ; the idea that I was dominating a 
world I knew nothing about, was more than I could 
endure. 

O, yes, they ar very funny, very frolicsome, but when 
I would become too exuberant in my temporary relief 
from the cursing, they would try anew tack. 

They ofen teased me by speaking with a sens of inti- 
macy that I did not like at all. It was as if there was no 



184 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

use concealing* anything from me. The game was up! 
I had pierced the mystery! 

4 'You ar des notres, now Sancho. There is no use 

"being backward. Make yourself at home. Don't be 

alarmed. Pas de faiblesse, Danton! Poor old daft 

Sancho. That is how people will speak about you in the 

future — just daft Sancho. " 

18.. " Is my control here ?" they had me the length of 
asking. Yes, he was always there redy for business, but 
I did not always pleas him. We hear a good deal about 
' 'controls'' that is favorabl, but as I ha v paid for my 
whistl I do not want to be " controld " any more. 

"You hav come thru into the occult world tinder the 
■wrong control." If I had had the right " control "I 
would never hav attempted to enter the occult world in 
that way. I might moralize again, but — 

19. " Miracls " ar sometimes wrot by hypnotic influence. 
I lay in bed for several hours lerning to perform them. 
My leg below the knee was seized by cramp and held 
until the pain was almost unendurabl. 

"You must lern to pray in faith to-night or never. All 
the others lernt in a shorter time than you. " I tried hard, 
and the pain left me. Then it was put back in order to 
give me a chance to lern my lesson. I became a 
" miracl " worker that night for an hour or two. 

Imagination again ? Now, let me explain a littl. I hav 
done some hous building in my time, and when I first 
began to use a hammer I occasionally struck myself on 
the finger or thumb nail — not intentionally, of cours, 
for in those days I was not quite so far gone. The sensa- 
tion that I felt is called pain in English. No matter what 
name you giv it, it is the sensation, the feeling I am 
after. If, then, the thumb-nail feeling was a delusion, so 
was the cramp feeling. If the one was real, so was the 



STRAY NOTES. I 85 

other. It was painful, sore, hard to bear. There has 
been a good deal of plesure in writing this book, as well 
as a good deal of disgust at my folly. The doctors ar too 
funny not to add a littl spice where it is needed. 

20. "Stedy now, Sancho Quixote," I say to myself as 
I feel like jumping from my seat. " Remember you ar in 
a hermitage and don't compromise yourself. What was- 
that ? " 

Suppose you had a needl plunged into your ear and 
withdrawn on the instant how would you feel ? Net very 
comfortabl. That was something like what I felt, only 
that there was a fiery itch with it that nearly made me 
yell. I felt it often enuf to know and dred it. That was 
one of the few things I dreded. The needl was not there 
but the pain was. The delusion, the hallucination was out 
in force and it had a sting that was real. 

How funny it must be for a man who does not believ in 
hypnotic influence to hear a patient describe all his local 
troubls. He must take him for a complete ass or the 
most accomplisht liar on earth. No wonder that some 
eloquent men who ar not gifted with the W. K. C. O. A. 
L. stay in hermitages while the flowers bloom on the 
outside. They hav told so many startling tales that the 
doctors suspect them even after they ar cured. 

21. Now, I shall hav to bring a German to the rescue 
and giv you something solid. I think the disorder must 
hav been well known both in Greece and Rome in the de- 
cadent days, but let the professor speak for himself: 

"INCREASING NERVOUSNESS." 

Under this rather startling titl Prof. W. Erb, at Heidel- 
berg, gave an address some time ago which demands more 
than a passing notice. Professor Erb takes it for granted 
that there is a markt increas of functional nervous dis- 



I $6 OUR UNSKKN COMPANIONS. 

orders, and he believs that the events of the present cen- 
tury hav naturally led to this result. The nineteenth cen- 
tury began in disorder and commotion. France had past 
thru a bloody revolution which was to be followed by the 
excitement and exhaustion of Napoleonic adventures; 
restlessness, political and social, was followed by a period 
of calm, but, with the advancing years, labor saving 
inventions rapidly replaced man and increast welth, and 
renderd communication easy. In science, in literature, 
all were devolping, and with it there appeard incapacity 
for restful plesufes, rushing from change to change seemed 
to be the only alternativ ( to work. With overwork there 
was overcrowding and overstimulation; alcohol and to- 
bacco were used in greatly increast quantities ; railway 
traveling and its nerv- jarring motion still further tended 
to nervousness; and, so Professor Erb convinces himself, 
with all this there has been a clear loss of nerv tone to 
the hole of the highly civilized nations. * * * 

According to Professor Erb all this rapid, restless move- 
ment has left an irritabl and slow recovering nervous 
svstem, which must be considered as neurasthenic. The 
essentials of this disorder, which has not been recognized 
twenty years, ar increast sensitivness, with weakness, 
weariness, lack of power of endurance, and defectiv re- 
cuperativ power. This disorder is a refinement of hys- 
teria and hypochondriasis, and it is the outcome of the con- 
ditions of life. He thinks it ot to be found in all periods 
of excitement and of luxury, but owns that there is no 
evidence of its existence in Greece or in Rome. The dis- 
order is to be recognized and to be met by changing con- 
ditions, and nerv hygien is to be considerd as much as 
sanitation. From school days to professional life the 
human being is to be tended and brot up, his mental, 
moral and fisical education is to be regulated, his holi- 
days ar to be methodized, his business is to be conducted 
in helthy surroundings, and his cities ar to be made hel- 



stray -notes; 187 

thy and beutif ul, with fresh air and beutif ill surroundings. 
Thus the professor is a preacher of hygienic socialism. 
As we said before, we hav been charmed with the address, 
but not convinct. 

The old question reappears in another form. Is in- 
creasing insanity and nervous disorder in necessary corre- 
lation to developing complexity of society? It must be rec- 
ognized that the more complex the rules of society the more 
frequent will be breaches of these rules, at all events for 
a time. In developing civilization, too, we hav a very 
perplexing factor added in the survival and the propa- 
gation of the non-fittest, and this doubtless adds to the in- 
creasing number of the nervous. We ar inclined to believ 
that there is some slight increas of nervousness, but that 
there is a much greater knowledge of the subject, and with 
knowledge comes subdivision and classification. We do 
not believ more women, at all 'events in England, hav 
'-nervs" now than had fifty year's ago. With the increas 
of excitement there has been a still greater tendency to 
more freedom of exercise, more freedom from conven- 
tionalism and much helthier home surroundings — British 
Medical Journal. 

22. One night Iliad a warning to be careful what I 
wrote on any subject. How it came about I do not know, 
but I saw then as I had never seen before what the effects 
of literature were. It has a terribl influence. I thot to 
myself, "I shall never write a word about my experience. 
I am afraid to risk it in case I make errors that will lead 
others astray," and now that I know how the mental 
machinery is workt I see it is a very serious matter indeed 
to put your thots on paper. 

It is high treason to whisper a word against the news- 
papers, but there is room for improvement in the news 
they furnish us. I hav howled like the other "liberal" 
men for the news as it happens, good or b.i.l, but I hav 



iSS OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

changed my mind on the subject now. It is right to do 
so when you see caus for it. The Rev. Lyman Abbot 
was lecturing to students the other day and he, too, wants 
the news servd up hot. It is all a matter of taste. Few 
men of sens read the sensational trash that is dished up 
every morning in the Daily Howler, but there seems to be 
a demand for it, the more's the pity. 

Carlyle said that the journalist is the true king of to-day, 
and there is a good deal of truth in the saying if he re- 
mains conscientious, but as it is the editorial page of most 
papers is nearly worthless on economic questions. It is a 
partisan howl that does not deceiv any man of sens. The 
proprietors care principally for the cash box, and ar redy 
to slobber on their knees before power and privilege, in 
order to make ( money. They could change the face of 
the world, but they " ar out for the stuff." Shaw I 
We know the defence and the howl. It is the same in all 
ages. 

There ar tons — I mean tons — of evil literature printed 
in this country, and the very fonografs ar fild to the neck 
with foul songs and indecent language. Do yon know 
what all this is doing? Anthony Comstock goes perhaps; 
too far in his zeal, but I hav changed my opinion of his 
work of late let them laf who will. Evil spirits ar ruling 
the printing press to a larger extent than is altogether 
suited to my taste. I know them. You do not. It is a 
dedly serious matter, I tell you, and when you laf and 
think that it is of littl consequence what boys read the 
devil is using you. 

There is a place to draw the line. 

I hav never had any taste for impure literature, but I 
hav red enuf of our gallic-decadent-extreme-realistic trash 
to serv for a time. "When you get out do not read any 
papers dealing with this occult world. Just leav it alone. 
Do not attend any meetings or hav anything to do with. 
the subject. " Very good advice, 



STRAY NOTES. 1 89 

23. Twice they succeeded in getting me too excited to 
-control myself, but I knew afterwards that it was not well 
do let go the helm. 

On the other side they hav better cantrol of themselvs. 
-"How did it come about that Satan presented himself be- 
fore God if He is a consuming fire to all those who work 
evil? Answer us that question, Mr. Quixote. Or do you 
stand for partial inspiration? Don't get so angry at us. 
We hav some rights perhaps that you ar not acquainted 
*with. You don't know so very much./ 

" And why was it that when Satan struggld with the 
Archangel, Michael, for the body of Moses, Michael 
could only say, "The Lord rebuke thee O, Satan." Why 
was it he could not bring any railing accusation against 
him? Be a littl more careful of your language. Take 
care how you revile us or in short hav anything to do with 
us. No, my frend, low as we ar, we ar not responsibl 
for the crucifixion of Christ. That we left to your race." 

24. "These voices ar simply the two voices that con- 
tend in the soul of every being on erth. They ar audibl 
to you, that is the only difference. 

25. "If you do not stop taking these notes we will be- 
gin in another way. Your name will ring in your ears 
every second of your life till insanity comes. You ar not 
going to publish any of your experiences for the very 
good reason that you ar going to stay here till deth comes. " 

26. "Our business is to destroy faith, but let us change 
the subject and begin work. Concentrate your eyes on 
that board in front of you. Concentrate-your-eyes-on- 
that-board. " I kept my eyes in every other direction in 
spite of a strong desire to do what they told me and the 
voice kept on with the dreary command. It became next 
to unbearabl to listen to it. They ar savage in their 



190 OUR I'NSr.KN COMPANIONS-. 

cruelty. Looking- over my shorthand notes of this inci- 
dent I find that I hav writn — "What is the use of all this 
tyranny? Why is it that peopl don't understand what is 
going on behind the scenes? There is no question in my 
mind that we would be far better to- let the occult World, 
strictly alone." 

No question now, ind eed ! 

27. One day I was walking thru the floor of the her- 
mitage wondering whether there was not more psychic 
influence around us than elswhere when a frend who had 
had some experience with delirium tremens came forward 
and said — " Don't you think that there is a good deal 
more psychic influence around us in this place than any- 
where els ?" 

He just repeated the question that I was asking myself 
and the voices arose, "Do you yet understand how we 
make men and women obey our orders thru mental 
suggestion ?" 

Just a coincidence, you say again, but suppose I could 
tell you of a hundred such " coincidences " what then ? 
A few establish the principl just as well, for to a greater 
extent than many imagin, this is how we ar acted upon. 

To illustrate again, let me tell you of something that 
happened. Suppose that I was conscious of the presence 
of my unseen companions and that they communicated 
with me by the — impression-route, — by a route that is as 
certain as if I herd the voices and that I was taking a few 
lessons in how the world is governed. Suppose further, 
that it is not necessary to put down a hundred instances 
to make the principl clear to those who belie v in the 
doctrin that we ar continually under the influence of two 
opposing powers and we ar redy. 

I was sitting in church one Sunday and as the ushers 
began to take up the collection the thot came to me, 
and I knew where it came from, What if one of the baskets 






STRAY NOTES. I 9 I 

should fall and the money should roll on the floor ? That 
was not the first time the thot had come to me in a life- 
time, I am well aware, but it was the first time I had ever 
seen the basket fall within a minute from the time the thot 
came into my mind, and the one basket was no sooner 
lifted than another rolled on the floor across the aisle 
from where I was sitting. And then the question came 
inaudibly as it had come many times, " Do you see how 
the puppets, the pawns ar acted upon ?" 

The men who were passing the baskets let their minds 
wander for a brief second under the influence of their 
unseen companions and the work was done. 

An engineer wrecks his train and we ar horrified when 
we take up the Morning Howler to see the account of the 
wreck. They were at his side supplying the material for 
the Spanish castls he was building. He smiled as they 
rose in the air but kept his eye ahed and his hand on the 
lever. Just as they came near the switch, however, the 
material was supplied for the airy tower on the corner of 
the building, and the engineer wavered at the critical 
minute and the damage was done. The tower had to be 
built. He could not help smiling as the load of fresh 
material came forward, but he saw thru it when he 
tumbld off the engin. 

Sometimes it is the telegraf operator who marches 
around the batlments of his castls and shouts for the 
warder. Harmless enuf once in a while, but one night 
they caut him napping and we red of it next morning. 
And so it is in all the relations of human life. 

" I hav been fortunate in typewriting this book, "I said 
to myself. " I hav not spoiled a whole line since I 
began." I went on and smiled, and kept on my gard, for 
I know who sends the thots now, and how necessary it is 
to be careful. But I soon became so interested that I 
forgot all about my caution, and before I knew how it 
happend I had writn one line on the top of another. A 



102 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

strange coincidence ? A moment of forgetfulness and 
you write on without changing the machine. And the 
question comes again to your mind, " Do you see how it 
is managed ?" 

I went into a store once to buy some wearing apparel, 
as the old frase has it, and just as the bundl was handed 
me the clerk said, ' * Don't you want a pair of suspenders ?" 
I know that such questions ar often askt at dry goods 
stores, but this happend to be one where they hav sens 
enuf to let the customed depart in peace after he buys 
what xie wants. It so happend that I really needed the 
galluses, but I had forgotten all about it. 

And again my unseen f rends askt me in an inaudibl way, 
' ' Do you now see why some men ar prosperous in this 
world and others fail ?" The devil can help a man a good 
deal if he chooses. It all depends if the man is going in 
the right direction to pleas the devil. He supplies the 
inspiration. Can we not find welthy Christians then ? 
What does the New Testament say about it? Never 
mind the intellectual expositions of the New Testament 
you hear. Go to the book itself and see what it says. 

You construct a theory, you tell me, and make the facts 
to fit it ? I know what I am speaking aboiit. Every day 
of your life you repeat the words that ar sent to you. 
Your business is to watch them that you may use only 
the right kind. 

And now how do you like it as far as you hav got ? 
And hav you time to read over that sermon in chapter 
two ? You may read it more intelligently now, for your 
mind is changed since you red it last time. It really 
does not matter if you ar a doctor and want to jump on 
the book with both feet. Ideas hav a certain influence upon 
you and you cannot help it. The evil spirits repeated 
lies to me so often that while I despised them I could 
not help being affected to some degree, and we ar all in 
the same boat. Ideas rule the world. 



STRAY NOTES. 1 93 

28. Speaking about ideas ruling the world, did you 
ever notice the low, unworthy pictures which appear in 
our two leading comic weeklies? Every man in good 
helth enjoys a littl amusement, but I cannot remember 
the time when I ever saw anything to laf at in some of 
the pictures that greet our eyes every week. They raise 
hell. That is plain language, but it is the truth. There 
is a legitimate field for caricature, and I enjoy an amusing 
picture as much as most, but look at the pictures of Irish- 
men, Negroes and tramps, walking delegates, or anyone 
who has the misfortune to displeas the masters of the "art- 
ists " who draw them. Any man with a glimps of art- 
istic feeling knows that there is limit to caricature, but 
when you begin to draw men with as close a resemblance 
to animals as you can, you overstep the limit. Look at 
the faces you see every week. Do you think any man 
with true artistic feeling would draw them? Only the 
bungler has to depend upon such work. 

An artist can draw an amusing picture that will not 
raise bad feelings in the minds of the men who look at it. 
Not very much hell, you understand — we ar always in 
such a hurry — just a littl every week; a littl more con- 
tempt for your fellow beings, a littl more race hate here 
on American soil, where it should be forgotten, and the 
work goes bravely on. 

And yet these papers go into the homes of cultured 
peopl. It is very strange that Christians should take 
them and spred them before their children every week. 
They contain evil ideas, bad for the men who draw them, 
and worse, if possibl, for those who look at them. We 
hav herd a good deal about the raising of artistic taste, 
and there is room for it, and furthermore it is an easier 
matter to change the tone of all our papers than many im- 
agin. The subscription office rules the paper to some 
littl extent. " Weary Waggles/' " Dusty Rhodes," and 
the others hav been sadly overworkt. Could you not 



*94 



OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 



to be a littl more merciful to the poor 



be induced 
wretches? 

A member of parlment over in England the other year 
thrashed an artist who took greater liberties with his 
mouth than were warranted by legitimate caricature. 
The artist had used the pencil to spoil the mouth of the 
member, and the member used his hand to spoil the 
mouth of the artist. Something might easily be said in 
favor of the member if force is to rule the world. 

29. And speaking about inspiration what about inven- 
tion? Ar our great inventors not quite so great as some 
of them imagin? What of the wonderful inventions that 
start! us sometimes? Can it be that to a large extent they 
come when they ar needed and when they ar given? Of 
cours, we hav to work for them as we hav for everything 
on erth that is worth having — our minds must be occu- 
pied in the right direction, but what if just a littl inspir- 
ation is given to cheer you up when things ar getting 
dull? 

30. How did it happen that Christ came when Greek 
was nearly the universal language and Rome had made 
the world accessibl? In short, does the machine run loose 
or is it carefully watched ? But if Sancho Quixote goes 
on much longer in this strain the heathen will rage, and 
the doctors imagin vain things. 



31. William Cobbett said a long while ago that a 
farmer's boy usually has a better memory than a filosofer 
or a man of lerning. The man depends upon note books; 
the boy depends upon his hed. 

I hav spoken of being obliged to wait a littl for words 
during the first months of the attack, and I sometimes 
forgot verses of a hymn or song that had been familiar to 
me. "No, you will go on to the next vers until we allow 



STRAY NOTES. I 9 5 

you to come back. We ar rather tired of that Christian 
anthology." 

Then again the flood gates were opend and I remem- 
rjerd things forgotten for a quarter of a century. The 
experience was amazing to me. Words, ideas, thots, ex- 
pressions, were resurrected in a flood. I forgot a great 
many words and names and verses until the pressure was 
removed, and I rememberd things I had forgotten. What 
does this mean? That our memory is at the command of 
good and bad spirits? That as our system becomes out 
of order the evil spirits acquire a greater power and ex- 
ercise it? That we ar instruments to be played upon, but 
with the power of judging and so with the power of mak- 
ing ourselves practically what we pleas in normal sur- 
roundings? — for I am always on my gard against some of 
our cultured frends in the pulpit. The building of a 
mind is a very serious matter according to this theory. It 
has to be fild with good, and unfortunately with bad thots 
from infancy up, and the fight rages without an end. The 
angels hav nothing to do but sing? Woe's me. Tell them 
that, and see what reply you will get. 

M. Sarcey, the Parisian critic wrote an interesting 
articl on memory for the " Figaro " that is quoted in the 
New York " Sun " of March 29th, 1896. He says : " Who 
in conversation, in seeking a name, a date, or any detail 
that flies before the memory and escapes, has not cried 
out in a tone of impatience, ' I hav it on the tip of my 
tung ?' And true enuf that name, that date, or that 
detail is on the tip of the tung. " 

The evil spirits put a good many expressions on the tip 
of my tung, so that it seemed strange to me that I did not 
express them aloud. Can it be that the good ones bring 
what is well for us to remember to the tip of our tung 
and the evil ones bring what is undesirabl when our own 
memory falters at the work ? Ar the good ones not 
strong enuf to tell us all that is necessary ? What about 



196 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

free will exercised in the past that has made our body a 
machine with some slight defects acquired or inherited ? 
And who knows but that we get all we need in the long 
run, and who knows too but that prayer may change the 
conditions and put us into a frame of mind that will enabl 
the good spirits to help us more without touching our 
glory and our danger— free agency ? But we ar perhaps 
going too far. The only excuse is that Sancho Quixote 
writes to mental suggestion, and it flashes from both sides 
fast enuf to alarm the skeptics. It is more than likely 
that our memory works automatically but it is clear that 
our unseen companions hav power over it too. 

"It seems," to go back to M. Sarcey, "as if the 
slightest effort would suffice to formulate it; but by what 
strange fenomenon does it refuse to allow itself to be 
captured ? The more you follow it the more it runs back 
into the depths of the mind." 

' ' There ar peopl with whom these failures of memory 
ar frequent and insupportabl. For my own part, I am 
very subject to them. In conversation when. I suffer from 
them I hav to be resigned, but in public speaking I find 
the inconvenience very painful. I am never sure that 
I may not hav to stop short before the name of the author, 
or of the book that I am talking about. That name 
I hav pronounct alredy ten times in the cours of my 
lecture ; but suddenly if vanishes from my memory. I 
hav it on the tip of my tung, but the tung remains 
powerless. 

" What is the caus of it? That is a question which 
I hav often askt myself, and many others must hav askt 
themselves the same question ; becaus in reality this 
diseas is very common, and the theater continually 
drawls comical scenes out of it. 

"After thirty years of exile, you return to the land 
where your childhood was past, and no sooner hav your 
eyes gazed upon the old town clock than a swarm of 



STRAY NOTES. 1 97 

recollections that hav slept for years becomes aroused 
and hums again. 

What ar we to conclude from this, if not that of all the 
recollections that ar stored in our mind, about one-third 
ar constantly at our disposal for our daily use, while the 
other two-thirds ar put away in drawers whose keys we 
hav lost. " Very well said, M. Sarcey, but who has the 
keys ? 

" Maury, who publisht a very remarkabl study of 
dreams, givs a fact that at first sight seems marvelous. 
He returned after a long absence to his native place. One 
night he dreamd that a gentlman, who, in dreamland 
only, he recognized as an old acquaintance, came to see 
him. When he awoke lie rememberd distinctly the face 
of the frend of his dream, but he didn't troubl himself 
about it, and regarded the whole affair as one of those 
dreams in which the imagination alone is set in motion, 
and which correspond with no reality. The next day, to 
his intens surprise, he met the frend of his dream, with 
the same name and the same face. It was a frend for 
many years forgotten. The fenomenon is singular, but 
it is easily explained. During the sleep of Maury his 
mind, aroused by the incidents of his voyage, opend the 
drawer where the memory of that frend was sleeping, 
and the chance of the meeting did the rest." Who sent 
the dream, M. Sarcey ? 

" During the last few years there hav been many ex- 
periments made in England with what is called the 'magic 
mirror.' " (Far too many.) " These experiments consist 
in fixing the eyes stedily for a few moments upon any 
brilliant surface, a glass, or even oil poured upon a dish. " 
(I, Sancho Quixote, was more ambitious, and took a ceil- 
ing and also white paper, where I saw a great many pretty 
sparks of fire, but the glass will work just as well.) " The 
subject who fixes his eyes upon this magic mirror falls in- 
to a state of hypnotism." (That is just what he does, M. 



190 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Sarcey, and it depends upon how his system is whether 
he getseasily into it and easily out of it. Verbum sap.) 
" There he sees under the form of images long-lost recol- 
lections. For instance, a woman who had completely for- 
gotten an important address saw in the mirror an envelop 
upon which she red it." 

But you know well enuf, doctor, that she only imagind. 
she saw it, altho the letter would reach the address all 
right? Sly old dogs the doctors. Bring along the plethys- 
mograf ! 

"The explanation of all is that the drawer was opend 
and that is the hole of it. " Not quite, M. Sarcey. Who 
opend it? Or supposing that we even accept the theory 
that once you get your mind in a certain state thru hyp- 
notism, concentration, or what you pleas, all knowledge 
flows in upon it, how did French begin to flow in on me 
when I was not thinking of it at all? Why not English? 
And how does it come if the mind works automatically 
in this condition my memory was brot to a standstill at 
the will of those on the other side? "We should bear 
well in mind that we do not really know what our mem- 
ory contains, becaus we hav not the power to call up at 
will everything that it contains and to empty all its cor- 
ners. But, on the other hand, those corners open some- 
times of themselves (?) and pitch out before our eyes ob- 
jects that we believd were lost. In this way we can ac- 
count in the simplest and most natural manner for all the 
mysterious anomalies of memory." 

Mr. Sarcey, as "The Sun " comments, writes entertain- 
ingly, but he would be surprised if he underwent a cours 
of training in the occult school to find how easily the 
memory is acted upon. 

Dreams hav intelligences at the other end. Fill your 
stomach too full and your unseen companions begin work 
when you sleep in order to keep your brain on the stretch. 
Good spirits ar not inclined to disturb your rest. They 



STRAY NOTES. 199 

know better than some of our political economists and 
some of our ministers that when the body is not well 
taken care of the nation will suffer in the long run. 

Alfred Russel Wallace speaks of the number of com- 
monplace peopl who die every year, and hazzards the 
conjecture that they will find part of their plesure in 
filling our minds with dreams that ar really of no conse- 
quence. Dreams do not come of themselves — you ar safe 
to conclude that. Perhaps it would be as well if, like Mr. 
Cleon whom old Plutarch tells us of, we had never had a 
dream in our life. Was he a perfect specimen of fisical 
manhood? 

$2. " And so you want to know the blackness of the 
human hart, do you? Well, we will gratify you. " A 
strange panorama was unfolded before me — a waiting uni- 
vers. "Now, then, here is a univers of beings like your- 
self who ar about to perish. Would you consent to anni- 
hilation to save them?" Annihilation? Annihilation? 
Once it had sounded half reasonabl, but now — "There is 
no need of thinking any longer on the subject. You ar 
like the rest of the human race — selfish to the core. A 
race of cowards. All you care for is enjoyment, enjoy- 
ment." Well, what do you think of it? We might be will- 
ing to die in the body, but we expect to liv again. But 
annihilation? Forgetfulness? That may suit some of our 
dreamy oriental f rends, but most Anglo-Saxon peopl want 
to liv on and grow. There is something in us that rebels 
at the idea of being put out of existence. 

33. What is space? What is eternity? We cannot 
comprehend the meaning of the expressions. They ar 
beyond our reach. And then we think of God and the 
awful univers he upholds. "Stop it you fool, stop it or 
your hed will burst. That is how mad houses ar fild. " 

34. Hav you ever been in the habit of frightening 



200 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

children with gost stories? It is surprising how many 
there ar who indulge in this practice. Fill their minds 
with luv and not with dred. A book of this kind should 
never be placed within their reach. Should never be 
writn? Sancho Quixote lookt over the field and conclud- 
ed that there was room for one more book in this world. 
There ar some older children who would do well to read it. 

35. There is one kind of hypnotism put to two uses. 
There is the devil's use, and there is another use to allay 
human suffering during an operation or anything of that 
nature. Is it not a kind of a miracl when used for bene- 
ficent purposes? Could the operator not cure diseas in 
the same way by an exercise of faith? Richard Roe 
cured me and why not others. Who causes diseas? Our- 
selves very often. Who acts upon the system and holds 
back nature from effecting a cure? Evil spirits? And 
supposing to lead others astray after false Gods t^hey take 
their influence off one of our "prominent and influential 
citizens" and keep it off? A dangerous business all thru, 
but I thro out these hints to irritate the faculty. 

36. The following articl from the "Filadelfia Ledger" is 
worthy of your attention. Sancho Quixote marks it O.K. 
And how do you like the new speling of the Quaker City? 

MENTAL SELF-CONTROL. 

There is one part of personal culture which receivs very 
littl consideration, i. e. y the direction and guidance of the 
thots. The habits we acquire, the principles we espous, 
the duties we perform or neglect, the temptations we re- 
sist or yield to, the words we speak and the influences we 
exert ar matters upon which we ar often urged to be vigi- 
lant; but the thots and imaginings which pass thru the 
mind ar seldom brot up for scrutiny. There ar two reas- 
ons for this — first, they ar so entirely hidden from others 



STRAY NOTES, 201 

that all the class of motivs which include the hope of es- 
teem or the fear of censure ar quite inoperativ; and, 
secondly, we ar accustomed to consider them so involun- 
tary as to prevent any serious sens of responsibility. The 
first of these reasons is undoubtedly operativ. No one 
but ourselvs knows what we ar thinking about ; therefore, 
we can be held accountabl for our reflections only to our 
own consciences. The second, however, is only partly 
correct. Impressions and conceptions do float thru our 
minds unbidden; but we ar not unabl to arrest them, to 
correct them, to turn them into other channels, or to dis- 
miss them altogether. The power to do this resides in 
every sane person, and the degree to which it is developt 
marks with tolerabl certainty the strength of the mind 
and the manliness of the character. There ar weak and 
indolent dreamers who ar slaves to their fancies, who care 
not to break their chains, and whose ability to do so is 
stedily dimishing. Yet even in them it may be reinstated, 
nor is it ever wholly extinct, save in those unfortunate 
cases when, thru diseas of injury, reason has been driven 
from her throne, 

The human mind is never wholly inactiv in its waking 
hours. No matter how passiv or how idle we may be, the 
thots and the fancies ar busy, with or without our will. 
Sometimes, indeed, they act energetically, in obedience 
to our purpose. We set ourselvs to work to think out a 
problem, to weigh an argument, to arriv at a decision, to 
fathom an idea, to consider the details of a plan or a piece 
of work, and our thots serv us well or ill according to their 
training. To think consecutivly and to a conclusion is 
one of the supreme arts of life, and the power to do it is 
one of the best gifts that education can bestow. Beyond 
this, however, there is a vast amonnt of musing and medi- 
tation that seems to go on within us involuntarily. Pictures 
rise up of the past as it was or might hav been, of the 
future as we hope or fear it may be. These ar more or 



202 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

loss vague and indistinct; but they either grow in clear- 
ness or fade away, according to the interest they excite- 
within us. Sometimes these floating notions will take the 
form of suggestions, and w r ill pass into real purposes, 
which ar put into execution. In the words of another, 
"The mind plays with the picture of them, until suddenly 
the picture has become a fact." Many a crime, from 
which the doer would once hav shrunk in horror, has 
slowly shaped itself in hours of secret meditation; and 
from long familiarity in solitary thot has lost its repulsiv- 
ness, and assumed a strength and proportion sufficient to 
create the actual deed. On the other hand, many an act 
of duty or self-sacrifice, at first supposed to be impossibl, 
has by continual contemplation become so attuned to the 
disposition that it has been perform d with eas and even 
w T ith plesure. 

Even where these imaginings ar not realized in activ 
life, they promote various mental conditions and nourish 
various emotions, A faint suspicion entering the mind 
and brooded upon will often develop into jelousy, anger 
and hatred; while, on the other hand, pure and noble thots 
cheiisht will make the character more pure and nobl. We 
can brood upon our troubls until they become unbearabl, 
or we can dwell upon our blessings until our harts ar 
melted into thankfulness. We can ponder over the faults 
of our neighbors until we ar imbued with disapproval and 
contempt, or we can muse upon their redeeming qualities 
till the kindly sympathies of our nature assert themselves, 
vSelf-companionship, indeed, is more influential in form- 
ing character and regulating life than any other intercours. 
It is more constant, more unconstraind, more absolutely 
vSincere. Yet, to make its influence truly salutary, we 
must direct its cours, and not suffer it to drift with wind 
and tide. We must be master of our thots, as well as of 
our actions; we must control the mental pictures in which 
we indulge, as much as the words which issue from our 
lips. — FiladeJfia Ledger. 



STRAY NOTES 203 

37. Yes, our thots ar far more important than we imagin, 
or els there would not be such a struggl behind the scenes 
to keep our minds full. It is an awful mystery. Our 
bodies ar battl fields full of contending 'hosts; our minds 
ar battl fields ; men war with one another in city and in 
country ; nation is arrayed against nation and continent 
against continent, and in the unseen world there is rage 
and unreasoning hate and ungrateful warfare against the 
calm luv, the wonderful power that bears us all up, star 
upon star, sun upon sun and system upon system. 

God is luv, we say. God is strife, is practically the 
answer of the expounders of the survival of the fittest as 
an excuse for a continuation of the industrial tyrany that 
is crushing the life out of their fellow beings. We point 
to the stars flaming around us in majesty and grandeur 
from generation unto generation, from cycle unto cycle, 
so orderly in their courses that the man of science can tell 
to the hour when they will roll past a certain point in 
their immens orbits, and they point to lions and tigers 
tearing one another to pieces as a symbol of what man 
made in the image of his Maker should be. 

38. We hav been deluged with Napoleonic literature 
for the last few years, but how many of those who hav 
red it hav ever herd the voice of the Corsican? I 
came to understand that my business was to get out of 
reach of these unerthly voices, but as I could not throw 
them off all at once I listend to his voice on several 
occasions. Was it his voice? I was so assured, and he 
spoke good French. I might hav herd the voices of the 
great ded had I wisht. I herd the voices of some great 
men but it was against my will. That was another of 
their traps to keep me wishing to remain among them. 

39. They followed me to church as regularly as els- 
where. vSatan and his hosts ar always at church rain or 



204 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

shine. It has been well said that they ar the first to enter 
the building and the last to leav it. They were always 
waiting on me at the hermitage chapel long after I had 
ceast to be much troubld with them outside. My only 
relief was to keep my thots fixt on the sermon, and listen 
as littl as possibl to their comments and criticisms. Their 
criticisms, as you may imagin, were very funny indeed. 
Men preach to larger audiences than they see around 
them. 

The first sermon I lisend to in the hermitage was 
from the book of Amos, I had been a herdsman in my 
younger day like the prof et, and they dubd me a Amos 
Junior " that afternoon. Very, very funny , without a 
doubt, and I had to laf, but when the voice began it was 
a very serious matter, 

40. What we all lack, more or less, the medical faculty 
included, is moral courage. It has been well said that 
for a man to deny the facts set forth about the unseen 
world of late years is to advertize his own ignorance, but 
still there ar many men who will not lern, When Dr. 
Hevytop, the well known expert, says that such and 
such a theory is true and sets his seal to it in that famous 
book, chapter ten, page eighty-three, his professional 
brethen, insted of howling at him until they ar sure he is 
correct, bow the knee and sing his praises. Long liv 
Hevytop, they chant; he and none other is the man 
for us. 

41. It is somewhat amusing to read of the fuss made 
over thot transference in these days. On comparing 
notes two frends who ar miles apart find that they hav 
had the same thot at the same time. Well, what of it ? 
Satan, in the current frase, is working this occult craze 
for all it is worth. Would you judge now that in nine out 
of ten of the cases you read of that good spirits sent j 



STRAY NOTES. 205 

thot, especially when you make arrangements to sit at a 
certain time ? Do you really think that the beings Dr. 
Hepworth tells you about ar engaged in that work ? A 
man in Europe and another in America hav the same 
thot at the same hour, and we ar properly surprised, but 
suppose a spirit can flit from Europe to America or to 
Mars by wishing for the change ? 

" Some gay the devil's ded 
And buried in Kirkcaldy. 
Others say he'll rise again—" 

and others say that he never died. It was a false 
rumor inspired by himself. He is still alive and kicking, 
and the Christians sleep and the doctors dream. A frend 
wrote me when in troubl and told me to eat plenty of 
half -raw beefsteak and that made them laf. "Anew way 
of exorcising us, Sancho. It will not work. Your frend 
is making fun of you now." 

Let us all take a rest, and try the steak. Shut your eyes 
as the blood squeezes out of it, for your nervs need 
some food. The doctors hav failed but the demons will 
make the women take to the open air yet. I believ that 
the bicycl is an invention sent from heven to help us in due 
time. Something was needed and it came. No, you will 
not get the storage battery for a long while yet. We need 
exercise, open air and sleep, and the battery would keep 
your legs at rest and give you gout. You evidently want 
to go thru life on flowery beds of eas. 

42. Once when they were putting the pressure on the 
small of my back, which they did when it suited them, 
I rubbed it with liniment and went to bed. I was no 
sooner there than a fiery heat arose and the pain left me. 
But during the action of the liniment my eyes began to 
wink so fast that I did not know what to make of it. 
They continued for several minutes and do the best I 
could I was unabl to stop them. The pressure for days 
at a time would of en rise to the top of the hed. It was 



206 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

not very painful, — it was as if the frolicsome spirits were 
at work insted of their stern brothers. I felt as if the 
hole brain were pressing upwards against the skull. It 
gave me a sort of a feeling that I should stretch out my 
neck to further the process or stand on tiptoe — a sort of 
inclination to mount upward, as it were. It was just the 
effect of the modicin I was taking, I suppose, but I 
hav a theory to lay before you that I am not quite sure 
about. I thro it out in the interest of science. That feeling 
as if the skull were too small for the brain ment something. 
Could it be that I was then in danger of suffering from 
the great national diseas of big-hed, or swell-hed as the 
vulgar call it ? We all know how prevalent this troubl is, 
and if I hav given a hint that will lead to the discovery of 
the germ, bacillus, microbe or whatever you call him, I 
shall be only too well pleased. Anything to further 
science. 

It is time that something were done to cure this troubl. 
Things hav come to such a pass that whenever a man 
invents a What-Is-It and begins psycho-neural mesure- 
ments, or gathers forty-nine dollars and fifty-three cents 
and opens a bank account that he is seized by the swell- 
hed bacilli, and there ar few recorded instances of a 
complete cure. 

43. Another way in which I experienct the curious sen- 
sation of the " something " that enterd the body was as 
if I was vibrating from hed to foot. The body did not 
trembl nor shake. It was more like the motion you feel 
on a steamer when the engins make it quiver from stem 
to stern. It was a strong vibratory motion not altogether 
unplesant and not so overpowering as the other that 
"swisht" thru me. There ar some men — great men 
too, who can "dominate" this odylic force as easily as 
they can dominate the sunlight, but as I said in the be- 
ginning we ar not all successful. A strange world for 



STRAY NOTES. 207 

science to conquer yet, and as our life is much fuller than 
the life of our grandfathers, so our grandchildren will 
smile at the ignorance of peopl who did not understand 
the vast forces that lie between the forty thousand vibra- 
tions and the six billion. 

But they will hav one great troubl on their shoulders. 
They ar sure to be afflicted with l'insanite des grandeurs or 
swell-hed. They cannot escape it if heredity is all 
that the men of science claim. We ar laying a strong 
foundation. 

44. Satan has been reasoned out of existence. ''In 
our age of Downpulling and Disbelief the very Devil has 
been pulled down. You cannot so much as believ in a 
Devil." Well, it appears to me that these evil spirits 
must hav a leader. We hav it on good authority that 
Satan leads them ; but do away with him altogether, do 
away with fallen angels, and say that my unseen com- 
panions were simply men and women after deth, and ar 
you in any better a position? Wors, I often thot. Surely, 
I thot, human beings cannot descend so low. They do 
evil continually. They ar savage in their desire to drag 
us down. They foment strife, inflame our minds against 
one another and devour weak and strong, and they begin 
their evil work upon children before they can walk. You 
said now when you red that, " That is carrying it too far. " 
Let us see. Wher does the temper of a child come from? 
Hav you ever seen them angry enuf to tear the trees up 
by the roots if they had the power? Heredity? Certainly. 
But if they were let alone by those who torment them 
they .would remain quiet when they often yell. Their 
nervs are twitcht. Why apply the rod? A quoi bon? 
Well, the evil spirits hav to be kept under, but the par- 
ents often punish the child when they themselvs need the 
rod. 

It is an old theory, and I hav always lookt upon it as an 



2o8 01 K I'XSKKN COMP ANIONS. 

ignorant superstition that evil spirits cause diseas. They 
don't do it directly, but they suggest the temptation ; we 
sin and suffer fisically, and so lay our bodies open to 
their attacks. " Palpitation " is not so hard to caus after 
you get into a certain fisical condition. 

Nature would bring us out of most of our troubls if they 
would let her alone, but they liv to destroy. Medicin 
puts us in a position to keep them at bay for a time and 
giv nature a chance. Why do they hav this power? Why 
do you hav the power to eat a hevy dinner? And prayer 
may giv good spirits more power to help nature without 
interfering with freewill? The temptations for those 
who go to the next world on the evolutionary plan with 
all their hates burning may be to influence those they 
knew and hated on erth, and to drag them down as much 
as they can. You think when you hang a man you get. 
rid of his influence? It may be. 

I hav been ernest on the subject of social reform before, 
becaus I knew how necessary it was from the spiritual 
standpoint ; but never did I understand till lately the 
frightful importance of proper hygienic conditions. I 
don't believ in anarchy par le fait, but I am now in- 
clined to think that if some one were to blow the hole 
accursed fever-breeding, helth-destroying tenements in 
the air he would be a benefactor of coming generations. 
Bad helth givs evil spirits power. They feed men with 
ambitious ideas, they feed women with pride, and so we 
hav palaces on one side, and soul -destroying hovels 
where children cannot get a breth of fresh air on 
the other, and cultured preachers turn their heds the 
other way, and the devil smiles at it all as of old, and hell 
rejoices. 

If there is no such being as Satan it is clear that our 
fellow mortals hav sunk so low in the next world that 
only a foolish man would think of taking chances with 
the great struggl before him. Clearly, if the theory 



STRAY NOTE?. 209 

is true some of them hav been unequal to the task, or els 
the temptations ar as great there as here, and perhaps 
greater, and hav dragged them down. And then by legis- 
lating Satan out of existence how do you explain the 
New Testament ? Or the Old ? 

45. You ar walking along the street on a fine sum- 
mer day and you see a large crowd gatherd around some- 
thing that seems to be interesting. You walk forward 
and find that two dogs ar fighting, and the men and boys 
ar urging them on. 

A littl further down the street you see another crowd 
and you push your way thru it and you find two men ham- 
mering away at one another. The boys set the dogs fight- 
ing but who set the men at it? Your unseen companions 
ar all around you, the one side striving for peace and the 
other pouring hate and anger thru the nervs until the 
men cannot stand the pressure, for they hav yielded too 
often in the past, and they spring at the Satanic work. 

You go further down the street to the office of your old 
frend about that littl matter you wanted settld, and the 
first thing you know you and he ar quarreling, and you 
ar away home denouncing him in your hart for an un- 
reasonabl scoundrel. You did not know that Satan had 
the trap redy. He knew you were going to present that 
bill at that time and he had been preparing to meet it. 
That morning your neighbor's wife did not get the milk 
for the brekf ast, for the milkman had forgotten it for the 
first time in six months — Satan had caut him napping 
— and your neighbor, a mild man under ordinary trials, 
has always become furious when he had no milk to his 
coffee. His wife told him the truth. She had swallowed 
her wrath a dozen times in their married life when the 
milk was sour or the man had not called, but that morn- 
ing she broke loose and the judge was piping mad when 
you met him. Satan triumfed all around. Two families 



2IO OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

were separated and glared at one another, and the milk- 
man was discharged. It was a great day in hell. Every- 
one counts there. What is the cure? Something we 
don't hav — meekness, which is different from imbecility, 
of cours. 

Many millionaires ar caught in the same way. They ar 
hypnotized to swindl and lie and steal thru their agents, 
for they ar far too well bred for the dirty work themselvs 
now, and then to build churches with the proceeds of their 
villany while the men who really ot to know better go 
down on their knees before them and thank them for 
their goodness. A mad world. 

Did you ever look at that miracl — a newspaper printings 
machine? There is half an acre of wheels and shafts and 
pulleys and rollers if it was all spred out. Suppose when 
it is rolling off the morning edition at the rate of 'steenth 
thousand copies an hour you were to take a bag of sand 
and begin to pour it among the wheels what would hap- 
pen? A good many spoiled copies would likely be turned 
out. Suppose you were to take a hammer and smash one 
of the small wheels, the machine would grind on, but 
every wheel counts and the loss of one means troubl. Our. 
world is like a printing machine rolling off its thousands of 
copies every day, but the evil spirits do nothing els than 
pour in sand among the wheels and a good many of the 
copies ar spoiled and most ar blurred one way or another. 
Sometimes they succeed in breaking a wheel, as when 
they tumbl a Greece or a Rome, and yet it is strange that 
they can only do their work slowly, littl by littl. Take 
up the paper when it comes from the press, for exampl, 
and you will read of a building falling down and killing a 
dozen men, or of an "accident" in a mine bringing about 
the deth of a hundred. Natural law, you* say. Yes, but 
why was the building erected in defiance of all the laws 
of good construction? Why was the mine in an unsafe 
condition? Becaus of ideas. The devil persuaded the 



STRAY NOTES. 2.1 T 

owners in both cases that they needed more money, and. 
still more, and the result was widows and fatherless chil- 
dren, the destruction of their bodily helth thru poverty, 
and a devil's dance over it all. Good building laws, good 
sanitation, good factory laws, good mining laws defeat 
the work of evil spirits and save souls. We hear a good 
deal about those who ar to wear "starless crowns." There 
ar many men alive to-day who would be content to wear 
them to all eternity if they could only improve the envir- 
onment of their fellows here. The next time your minis- 
ter tells you that environment does not count tell him 
frankly that he is an ass. 

What of deth too ? Well, we all commit suicide. Every 
time we sin, every time we nurse an evil idea we hurt our- 
selvs. I know that too, for I have been there. The wages 
of sin is deth. Why do so many peopl die before their 
time? Sin. They may not be responsibl. It may hav 
been the father,- the grandfather, or even the great-grand- 
mother, altho by that time if we were wise we could get 
rid of the effect of sin, but we ar not wise. I am too 
proud, you ar too proud. It has been said that force must 
rule the world. There never was a more wretched mis- 
take. Meekness must rule the world, and if we were all 
meek the purposes of the demons would be utterly defeat- 
ed, but again I am too proud, you ar too proud, and they 
make pawns of us and oftenest of those who don't believ 
it. It has been said that if two angels were sent to erth, 
the one to sweep streets and the other to govern an em- 
pire they would be redy to exchange tasks at any time, but 
try men! Ask his Unserene Highness, Signor Bona- 
parte to take a broom and see what will happen, or if you 
don't care to go so far back into history read "Society as 
I hav found It," or a snob discussion on "What to do 
with our ex-Presidents." That is how the evil spirits get 
their hold. 

But as to deth all is in the hands of God. "Without 



212 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

His leav they pass no threshold o'er." I believ that He 
"interferes" with natural law of tener than we suppose, but 
as a rule it seems to hold the field and it is well, it is right, 
becaus it must be. But what again if prayer in complete 
faith triumfs? I do not believ and never hav believed in 
fore-ordination — I believ in free-will limited, of cours, by 
our environments and training — You ar at liberty to set 
fire to your neighbor's house, but you do not mean to do 
it; our free-will is held in check by your common sens; 
God's sovereignty and your free-will march hand in hand. 

What then of batl, murder and sudden deth? Just 
the result of ideas, and pursue them to their source and 
you find evil spirits. What of plague and pestilence? 
Ideas again. Cholera sometimes comes from the Holy 
Well of Mecca. They will never clean out that well. The 
sky would fall if they did, and so we suffer from the ideas 
which hav held them by the throat for centuries. 

Ar we not sometimes punisht by special inflictions tho? 
We hav to believ that or thro the Bible aside, but if we 
ar it is again the result of sin — of our own asininity. Only 
demons and fools shriek that God is a tyrant. God is luv. 

And when children die? Well, their bodies ar not strong 
enuf to bear the attacks of diseas and evil spirits assault 
them and end their lives on erth, but the creation of mind 
goes on after "deth." "There is no deth; what seems so is 
transition." Read Longfellow's beutiful poem of "Resig- 
nation." If God sees best, these, to us, natural laws ar 
overruld,butevery bullet, as a rule finds its billet accord 
ing tothe laws that regulate its cours. We cannot expect 
to be protected if we make targets of ourselvs. Every 
plague sweeps off the just and the unjust. 

Why, then, hav the evil spirits power to fill our minds 
with ideas which when yielded to giv them power over 
the body — power enuf often to bring about deth, if God 
allows them in all cases to end their work? Free-will 
again. And what becomes of these beings when they ex- 



STRAY NOTES. 



2 1 3, 



ercise their free-will this way? If you herd them you 
would be abl to partially conceiv what they hav brot 
themselvs to. 

If I hav sometimes writn in a light-harted way it has 
been to reliev the dreary story I hav told, 

" And so between his Darkness aud his Brightness 
There past a mutual glauce of great politeness " 

is all well enuf, but I know, and want you to remember^ 
that they ar liars and professional murderers, and yet, and 
yet they can kill us only thru ideas. They ar completely 
foiled by meekness, but we hav a large share of their 
nature and cannot be meek. It is a foolish idea to suppose 
that when children die it is a "visitation of God" altho 
He will bring the best possibl issue out of all troubl if we 
will. It may be so in exceptional cases, but only, it 
seems to me, in very exceptional ones. Most die from 
fisical causes, and many ar saved from dying, I believ, 
thru the intervention of our unseen companions. Fresh 
air would save hundreds of children in New York every 
year. God has given us plenty of it ; it is we who ar at 
fault. Suppose that we could hav things our way and hav 
these helthy laws set aside we would all go to sleep. We 
ar driven forward by laws from which we cannot escape, 
in the direction of progress and of the glorious civilization 
that is looming up in the distance. We must come into 
harmony with God's laws or suffer, rich and poor. 

The demons sometimes cautioned me not to use 
strong language against them, and I remember as I saw 
how we were surrounded and acted upon I pitied the 
whole race and myself likewise, as well as the demons 
and the millionaires, and I feel the same sentiment rising 
in me now. But without a singl word or even thot against 
any mortal or demon one cannot help being disgusted at 
the unchristian, the mad satanic idea of increasing the 
standing army, of building batl ships, forts and armories. 
The idea came from evil spirits. Don't blame them. 



2T4 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

Mind yourself. Force comes natural to us. We find a 
thousand excuses for it, but that is how the devil rules us 
and pours sand among the machinery. And yet after all 
is said we ar held so secure against the assaults of demons, 
if we ar anxious to go in the right way, that after you 
come to your bearings you can smile at their threts. 
God is luv. 

46. Ar you ever troubld with insomnia ? Who causes it? 
Whose interest is it to keep you in that condition ? Per- 
haps it is easier to acquire a certain influence over you 
than you imagin. Think it over, and if you don't like 
the theory you need not become excited, for they try hard 
to anger you. It has a bad effect. 

47. Then if you ar not troubld with insomnia do you 
ever walk around in your sleep ? I was going along the 
principal streets of one of our largest cities one night be- 
tween ten and eleven o'clock and I saw a man rushing 
along in front of me, drest, as Bill Nye would hav 
said, only with an ernest face and a robe de nuit. His 
eyes were closed and he did not seem to feel any pain as 
his bare feet pattered along the hard pavement. He 
walkt on, I presume, until he met a policeman. I watcht 
him until he went out of sight, and the men and women 
in the street made way for him respectfully and laft, of 
cours. He was possest. Sometimes they walk along 
the roof of a house or in other dangerous positions where 
they would not venture with their eyes open. If they 
ar not all hurled down as some ar it is only becaus we ar 
cared for by other unseen companions than the evil ones. 

The man I saw was fortunate in one respect, at least. I 
red some years ago that during an earthquake scare in an 
Italian town the inhabitants rusht out into the street in 
their terror, clad only in distorted faces. It had been an 
old custom, you see, and they had never expected to go 



STRAY NOTES. 2 I 5' ' 

on dress parade at the call of the bell. Next day the 
report said, they all wended their way to the stores 
determind to adopt the new fashions, and thus civiliza- 
tion goes forward even among the old fogies by leaps 
and bounds. 

Only a few weeks ago I red of a man being buried 
alive in London. He stayed below the ground for the 
appointed time and then he was dug up. They sow bar- 
ley over their graves in India and wait till it sprouts or 
ripens before they dig them up. These ar clear cases of 
suspended animation — of complete possession — of men 
being used to spread devil worship. 

48. And again the other day I red of a "hypnotist" 
taking some of the poor boys he carries around with 
him and exhibiting them before an audience with pins 
stuck into their flesh and with all the other accompani- 
ments. The doctors were there and they surrounded the 
victims watch, in hand. We read of great abuses in the 
Parisian hospitals thru hypnotism, but we don't hav to go 
quite so far from home sometimes. 

The left puis of one of the "subjects" was made to 
beat at one rate of speed, the right puis at another, and 
the hart at another still, — nothing so very remarkabl 
after all. Just New Testament possession at the end of 
the nineteenth century, with this difference that it is now 
applauded by Christians. 

During one of my worst nights I was awakened and 
went to the window of my small room and my hart be- 
gan to beat to the voices I herd. When the voices went 
fast the hart followed, and when the time was changed so 
were the hart beats, and the change came every other 
minute. Had a doctor of the old school put his ear to my 
hart then he would hav orderd a coffin, but we shall leav 
him to say whether it is good for the body when the hart 
is thus excited. 



21^ OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

49. We must do as Oliver Wendel Holmes recom- 
mended a few years ago — that is choose our great-grand- 
fathers and great-grandmothers and make them and 
their descendants walk in the right path until we arborn, 
Then we must behave like angels ourselvs and our chil- 
dren will be so fisically perfect that the fiends will not 
be abl to work on their nervs. "Vile body" indeed! Some 
of the old theologians were closely related to the donkeys 
whether the Darwinian theory is true or false, and that 
brings me again to the ministers and their neglect of 
economic questions — but what's the use. 

50. How would you feel if some one should slap you 
in the face or take hold of your nose and pull it? We talk 
about turning the other cheek and that is the sensibl thing 
to do, as I now see, for by resisting we ar simply doing 
the devil's work, but then we ar not always sensibl, and 
the screws ar turnd just on such occasions. I hav felt the 
sensation sometimes when asleep, and herd the mocking 
laf when I, somehow or another, calmed down altho the 
current was poured in. The same wave of anger rises as 
if you were awake and some one struck you, but we ar 
sometimes better taken care of when asleep than we take 
care of ourselvs when awake. 

When you awaken you understand the game. The at- 
tack was ment to hurt your nervs which can be done when 
asleep as easily as when awake. A strange world, and a 
strange process of building up and tearing down goes on 
in us every day. t 

51. What is power, after all? What is knowledge? 
If God represented only power and knowledge without 
luv what would He be to us? Satan has these. I believ 
that if we were let alone by evil spirits we would soon 
turn this erth into a home for the gods, but they, in their 
own language, raise hell every hour of the day, and we 



STRAY NOTES. 2 1/ 

ar not always strong enuf to resist them. They send ideas 
and insted of refusing to entertain them we nurse them, 
and they ar so carefully hidden in some respects that we 
rather like them, and nurse, and nurse until the time 
comes for using them and then we tumbl. 

But as to knowledge, the evil spirits know everything* 
on erth, altho I do not belie v they hav foreknowledge ex- 
cept as we hav it judging from experience, and when dur- 
ing my fight this thot struck me I took hart and conclud- 
ed that their confident predictions as to my doom were a 
littl premature. 

But our books ar open to them — all the books in all the 
languages of the erth — all human knowledge, chapter and 
page. What then? Just this: Hav you never been 
wearied in reading the reviews to find how very, very dis- 
tinguisht some of your fellow mortals were — how the 
"classics" made men equal to the gods in all beneath and 
abuv the skies? Would some of these men not be better 
to keep modest? Hav we not had quite enuf of the 
"scholar" of late years? 

Luv and not knowledge, gentlmen, is God the Maker of 
heven and erth. Knowledge is only one of His attributes. 
Think of these millions of worlds whirling aloft and 
around us in all their terribl majesty and then remember 
that the maker and upholder of them all has told you that 
luv and not power and not knowledge is Himself, and 
then for any sake giv us a rest on the "scholar." Try and 
cultivate some sens of proportion. I hav been mingling 
among a strange race of beings, and I am afraid I shall 
hav less patience with the "scholar" than ever, for the 
scholarship of those I lisend to so long is abuv reproach, 
and I know a great many peopl who can scarcely read who 
ar far higher in the scale of being. 

You see, Sancho Quixote, for his sins, it may be, has 
red most of your reviews for a good many years and he 
knows only too well that many, far too many, of our 



2 i 3 OUR U N S E E N C O M P A N I O N S. 

scholarly trends preach the same accursed doctrin of sel- 
fishness that he listened to from another quarter of late. 
Of cours, ignorance does not by any means stand for luv, 
but if we could find some way to get just the least littl bit 
of information, for we can't grasp so very much, without 
feeling that we were raised too far abuv our fellow beings, 
it would be better for us. If we could only persuade them 
to be humbl, but as the spirits told Sancho Quixote it's 
this awful agressivness that troubls us. 

52. When cattl ar drivn to the slauter hous why 
do they sometimes try to escape for their lives? Why ar 
other animals affected with the same troubl? How do 
they get the information? How do you get a warning of 
danger sometimes? Who pours dred upon you? And do 
the animals perish after deth? When we destroy our 
nervs the instrument does not respond to the players be- 
liind the scenes, and the creation of mind is often stopt to 
a large extent until matters ar righted, and sometimes al- 
together till deth comes and then the psychical body that 
Mr. Savage speaks of is redy for work on the other side. 
Is it the same with the animals? Only instinct? How 
do you know? The cow of to-day is the same as the cow 
in the time of Rameses? What of the man? Is he so 
very much higher than the Greeks were? He knows 
more, but so does the cow. He knows what a trolley car 
or a bicycle is, but so does the quadruped. He has seen 
a steamship and so has she. She still goes thru the old 
process with the grass, and now the man has not time to 
chew his food. The more you begin to compare the two, 
the clearer you see that the advantage is with the animal. 
Is there a mind created in her during life? That is what 
they told Sancho, and they thretend to re-incarnate him 
into an animal of lower degree than "the milky mother of 
the herd." But all this is just for the purpose of riling 
you, and of sending your thots in the direction of the 



STRAY NOTES. 21 9 

silly re -incarnation theory, vegetarianism and the influ- 
ence of spirits on animals. Ar snakes possest? What of 
the boa-constrictor and the corba? Does conscience make 
cowards of them all, or do they kill as cheerfully the last 
time as the first? What of the shark? What of the lion 
and the tiger, the Malthusian and the survival of the fit- 
test man? Possest, all of them? It is a tragic world. 

53. What does that stedy ringing noise in the ear 
mean ? It was usually in the left ear, but as soon as I 
Tjegan to wonder why it was not in the right one as well 
it turnd to it on the instant. In lying down on your left 
ear at night, for exampl, it begins and sings and sings 
like a kettl, but if you get wearied of it and turn to the 
right side the noise turns with you and helps to keep you 
cheerful. This atmosfere around us is worth watching. 

54. Nature gives compensation. If a man turns blind 
his hearing usually becomes more acute ; if he looses a leg 
he has more blood for the rest of his body, and if he 
plunges among demons there ar angels to meet him until 
the worst of it is past. Nature gives compensation ; the 
back is made to fit the load, the wind is temperd to the 
shorn lamb. But when we get impatient and think no 
one els has a carefully draped skeleton in the closet but 
ourselves, troubl comes. 

I herd a good sermon the other day, for altho I like to 
tell the reverend gentlmen where they ar falling short, 
I also like to hear them preach even if before my plunge I 
had been at church only once in two years, and the 
preacher said that we were all inclined to think our own 
burdens were the heviest. "Just suppose," he said, 
" that there was be a parade of family skeletons down the 
principal street of your city what would you find ? Why 
the worst looking skeletons would likely belong to the 
peopl you had considerd the happiest in the city." It 



220 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

would be a rare show, but it is all known behind the 
scenes. 

Another coincidence will make you angry, but for the 
last three Sunday nights I hav lisend to the same 
sermon from three different ministers in two different 
churches. In two cases the same opening hymn was used 
and the language of the preachers and the illustrations 
were practically the same. I went to the two churches by 
chance, we say. The last one I attended I saw only a 
coupl of hours before services began. I had not red any 
notices, but from beginning to end it w r as a matter of 
"chance." 

I needed the first sermon, and came out of church in 
another mood from that in which I enterd it. God rules 
supreme, said the preacher; be reasonabl, and He will 
take care of everything. Do not cross a bridge before 
you come to it. 

Be reasonabl, said a different preacher in the same 
church the following Sunday, put aside all worry, take no 
thot for the morrow. Why look so far ahed ? Perhaps 
you will be ded before those dredful things happen. Hav 
faith in God. 

Be not over anxious, said the man who told us about the 
skeletons, be content with such things as you hav, and 
the three men gave me the same discours. Do you know 
how the world is governcl? the spirits askt me often. 

I know what is said of those who drawlittl morals from 
little things, but I hav had so many of these coincidences 
for months that it seems I shall yet be forct to lern the 
lesson that there are two ways of governing the world — 
one way thru legislation, for we hav no right to play the 
cowardly sluggard, but a duty to change the social state 
until our laws harmonize with the new knowledge that the 
Spirit of God pours upon us from age to age, and another 
way that tells us of a Father who is watching over us and 
overruling our mistakes, and preserving us from dangers 



STRAY NOTES. 221 

we do not know of, and giving us our daily bred with 
punishment enuf becaus of our accursed selfishness in 
trying to heap up millions thru infamous laws that fill 
the pockets of one man and starv another. There is no 
waste in God's kingdoms. Look around you and see 
what is going on and you can judge of how much value 
the theories of our clod-pated "economists " ar worth. 
Waste everywhere, and it must be stopped. 

Y our cousin Sancho Quixote, often angry enuf at the 
folly of humanity, has estimated the value of ten to 
twenty times more buildings than he has ever put up, and 
he has done as well as 'his neighbors. He has sat in his 
office for weeks, yes, for months, figuring until the sight 
of a plan was loathsome. He, has often known of from 
twenty to forty men, contractors and subcontractors, busy 
at the same work when he could have done it from cellar to 
roof himself, and he is far too intelligent to luv that sys- 
tem. He hates waste of effort. He has some belief that 
that we can get along without such "competition." The 
man who enjoys it is the ignorant man. Change your 
silly, swinish system into harmony with the stars, becaus 
that is what God wants us to do, and what demons and 
clod-pated political economists do not want us to do. 

55. Ar acquired characteristics transmissibl ? Hav you 
red the great Spencer- Weisman debate ? No ? Neither 
has your cousin Sancho, and littl did you or he ever think 
that the time would come w T hen he would thus rub shoul- 
ders with the great ones of the erth. 

" But gome whom we past by iu scorn 
Ar crownd with taig-h honors now!" 

The fisical machine is inherited, and by thinking on 
certain subjects the nervs may be strengthened — or weak- 
ened as great men often hav stupid sons ? — and then the 
angels will hav a better instrument to play on for the 
creation of mind, but as to whether Spencer or Weisman 



222 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

is right Sancho does not pretend to know. He cannot in 
reason be expected to settl every disputed question. You 
will hav to ask his frends, the doctors. 

56. You hav doubtless herd the story of the horse thief 
who had come to the end of his carrer. They were lead- 
ing him out to be hanged and the Indian was there 
looking at him with the eye of an expert. He was as 
much interested in noting the bearing of the poor fellow 
as a vivisectionist is in watching the struggls of his 
victim. 

He watched him keenly but there was not the quiver of 
a muscl. He marched proudly on to the gallows, — 

" O what is deth but parting- breth ; 
On many a bloody plain 
I've dared his face, and in this place 
I scorn him yet again." 

' 'He die game," the Indian grunted approvingly. 

The doctors, as I hav alredy said, die game, but I for- 
giv them. They hav studied many things but they can- 
not be expected to be omniscient. I would hav been 
wiser to follow their advice when I rejected it, and so I 
forgiv them — that is, all but one. I mean the man with 
the plethy sinograph. The man who perpetrated such a 
word in these days when the dictionary makers cannot 
keep ahed of the free coinage of polysilabic monstrosities 
does not deserv to be forgivn. 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATON. 223 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

American Civilization. 
" Put money in thy purse." — Iago a possest man. 

The growth of welth and luxury, wicked, wasteful and 
wanton, as before God I declare that luxury to be, has 
been matcht step by step by a deepening and dedening 
poverty which has left hole neighborhoods of peopl prac- 
tically without hope and without aspiration. At such a 
time for the church of God to sit still and be content 
with theories of its duty outlawed by time and long ago 
demonstrated to be grotesquely inadequate to the de- 
mands of a living situation, this is to deserv the scorn of 
men and the curse of God. Take my word for it, men and 
brethern, unless you and I and all those who hav any gift 
or stewardship of talents or means of whatever sort, ar 
willing to get up out of our sloth and easand selfish dilet- 
tanteism of service, and get down among the peopl 
who ar batling amid their poverty and ignorance, old and 
yung alike, for one clear ray of the immortal hope — then 
verily the church in its stately splendor, its apostolic or- 
ders, its venerabl ritual, its decorous and dignified con- 
ventions, is reveald as simply a monstrous and insolent 
impertinence. — Bishop Potter, New York. 

"There spoke," says The Voice, commenting on this 
part of Bishop Potter's speech at the opening of Grace 
Chapel, New York, " a courageous man and a sagacious 
church leader. Bishop Potter sees, a£ every man should 



2?4 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

see, and as no mr 1 has any excuse in this day for not see- 
ing*, that the last twenty years in the life of this republic 
hav developt a vast peril such as thretens us with a strain 
upon our institutions greater than that imposed by the 
civil war. For a condition of political freedom cannot ex- 
ist in a land where industrial slavery has been establisht. " 

So say we all of us, so say we all. There is one way 
of getting out of the troubl and the tories w 7 ould be well 
enuf pleasd to adopt it — that is close the schools, and go 
back to the centralized Russian idea. They ar being in- 
directly closed to tell the truth. There ar more than 
50,000 children of school age who cannot find seats in the 
.rich city of New York. It must be the devil inspiring 
me, for w T hile the "respectabl" peopl say quiet things and 
tell us to hold our peace I find strong terms rising in my 
g-orge. Don't speak of it. Don't seek to defend it. The 
thing stinks. Money squanderd on high schools, colleges, 
-universities, and 50,000 children cannot get even a prim- 
ary education ! It is the same in all the cities of the 
country and the welthiest at the worst. The blustering 
continent! Women and children starvd and crusht as 
they ar in Europe, falling ded in the streets of starvation, 
and the blustering, flag-waving, selfish patriots ar yelp- 
ing of what their forefathers did in revolutionary times 
insted of doing something themselvs. 

The selfish cowards! For even in rotten Europe the 
welthy ar beginning to see their duty. Our rich men, says 
Bishop Spalding, will hav to do their duty or perish. The 
ignorant well-drest cowards who will defend the accursed 
wrongs done on helpless beings every day of the year. 
Yes, I know your shoddy, selfish patriotism, and I know 
the character of the men who ar shouting for it, but I hav 
been in a world where the mask is torn off all our high 
sounding pretensions. Look at Europe, look at Europe, 
they whine in their newspapers owned by men who ar inter- 
ested in the perpetuation of the system that is filling their 



AMERICAN CIYILIZA K N. 225 

own pockets; they ar worse in Europe! As if this govern- 
ment were not a protest against the hole of the rotten 
fabric that is grinding down men and women on the other 
side of the Atlantic ! 

Carlyle tells us that a king of France before the revo- 
lution once stopt a funeral procession and askt what the 
man had died of. " Starvation" was the curt reply. The 
king rode on and so did the sentiment that brot his suc- 
cessor to the scaffold. 

Men ar starving to-day in the cities of this continent, and 
our modern kings of shreds and patches ar riding on with- 
out taking the troubl to ask the question. 

?he new kings hav acquired power like the old ones, 
and like them they ar using it in the old way. But they 
hav become pious. They ar strong supporters of the 
church now. There is one consolation, however, and that 
is, that their kind of church-going Christianity is not the 
kind taut in tbe New Testament. The Rev. Dr. 
Sprecher was about right when he said that there was 
nearly as much Christianity outside of the churches as 
inside of them. 

Our present industrial system is but another species of 
feudalism. The serfs hav votes, but they hav not yet 
acquired sens enuf to use them. They vote for their 
oppressors and whine when they ar starvd. If it were 
not for the women and children one could stand back and 
contemplate the picture with not a littl satisfaction. 

How hav our shoddy kings acquired their power ? There 
is littl use repeating the story. Every man of sens knows 
it from beginning to end. I will say one thing tho: 
not a man, not a woman of the millionaire class has 
died who would not giv anything to come back and 
lead a different life and make another use of the power* 
voo had. A deep regret, sorrow unutterabl will possess 
them, I believ. Even if they go to heven ar they not to 
see the effects of their life ? Even if God casts our sins. 



2 2b OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

behind His back ar we not to get a littl glimps perhaps, to 
teach ns in order that we may teach others. Angels ar 
far higher than we, but they think, they feel, they ar not 
automatons. 

Do you want to know the kind of men who ar paying 
some of these blindfolded, higher critical gentlmen 
to-day ? When I was among the spirits and my thots, 
often under their guidance, ran on some act of some 
great man, some disputed question, they wonld shout, 
"Socrates come forward," and then it was, "I, Socrates, 
deny the hole story." "I, Napoleon, deny that mas- 
sacre at Acre. " Now, then, after that fashion let the 
Mayor of Chicago stand forward. 

Allusion had been made at a banquet of ',-' our promi- 
nent citizens " to the incompetence and corruptibility of 
the city council, especially in the matter of granting 
street franchises, and on this point the Mayor said : 

' ' Who is it that comes into the common council and 
asks for such privileges ? Who is it w T ho ar accused 
of offering bribes for such franchises? It is the same 
ones — the prominent citizens. I tell you these questions 
come home. Talk about anarchy, talk about breeding 
the spirit of communism, what does it more than the rep- 
resentativ citizens of Chicago ? Is it men in the common 
Avalks of life w r ho demand bribes and w T ho receiv bribes 
from the hands of the legislativ bodies or the common 
council? No. It is your representativ citizens, your 
capitalists, your business men. Who is responsibl for 
the condition of affairs in the city of Chicago ? Your 
representativ business men. If an assessor grows rich 
while in office, wdth whom does he divide ? Not with the 
common people. He divides with the man who tempts 
him to make a low assessment, not the man who has the 
humbl littl hous, but the capitalist and the business 
man. These ar plain words, but they ar true." 

Perfectly true, your Honor, now you ar excused.. But 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATON. ' 2ZJ 

is it not a littl singular that whenever a working man has 
told the same truth he has been denouncd by our "inde- 
dendent " press for a scoundrel, an anarchist, a man who 
is seeking to uproot all our beloved institutions that 
the fathers handed down ? If I remember rightly that 
banquet, when, for once, one welthy man told the truth 
to his brother capitalists, was held on a Saturday night. 
Next morning these Christian gentlmeil would likely 
enuf put on their best smile and go to hear the reverend 
doctor tell them of the lafest fase of the Pentateuch 
dispute. And there is another side of it. Their wives, 
good Christian women, ar sharing in the thieving. They 
ar drest in the best the land affords and ar noted for their 
charity, but they ar receivers of stolen goods. No, ladies, 
it will not work. You see, I am certain that it is all going 
to be judged on another standard than the Dun and 
Bradstreet and Wall Street one, and some of you who ar 
sailing pretty high now will be so much lower than many 
you smile at to-day, that you will not know yourselves. 

I know how it is, becaus I had my past life turned up 
by a strange process, and it was not very agreeabl in 
some aspects. One thing, tho, that made me smile with 
a keen satisfaction thru it all was that I hav always 
spoken and voted and done my best to change the swinish 
system we liv under now to another where peopl would 
not need to starv or accept charity if they were willing to 
work, and another thing that made me smile more, was 
the fact that I had managed to get thru life without 
ever being tarry- fingered enuf to accept or giv a bribe. 
I merely throw that out as a hint. Verbum &ap, again. 

We ar not expected to deal with social questions, say 
some of our polisht frends in their sermons. Fau ! 
Don't get any lower, pleas. 

Social questions ar moral questions of the highest sig- 
nificance, and it is time that our ethereal frends knew it. 
"Working men refuse to be deceived any longer. 



2 2S OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

It takes a long while for a question to come to a hed, 
but after a certain time the trimmers hav to take a back 
seat. The currency question will shortly after this writ- 
ing be fot out on the floor of the great political conven- 
tions. Everything has been done to deceiv thepeopl and 
keep it in a state of see-saw, but the time has gone past 
for any more trimming, as even the cowards who hav no 
convictions see. They ar going to be f orct to take sides. 
The time for sitting on the fence is past. 

So with other social questions that ar now surging over 
the world from Moscow to the Golden Gate. The time 
has come to take sides. For plutocracy or against it? One 
or the other. For the plain doctrin of Jesus Christ that, 
the cowards in pulpits ar blinking at to-day, or against it? 
For God or Mammon, one or the other. 

Let us hear another spirit. Lady Henry Somerset and 
the present Mayor of Chicago seem to be in accord on 
social questions. We ar bound to come to our own some 
day when even the welthy ar telling the truth. In speak- 
ing at the Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 9th, 1893, she 
said : 

' 'Christianity, I believ, means to face the questions of 
the day as Christ did. Descend the marbl steps of your 
great churches and go down into the market place. Stand 
there for once face to face w T ith human beings. Come 
out from the world of fashionabl Christianity; see the 
wan and pallid faces of factory girls pinched in the poorly 
paid service of some pillar of the church. See the backs 
bending under the burden of unrequited toil ; come down 
and vSee the. life that is, and in all its changing fases as- 
sume the attitude that Christ would hav done in the same 
circumstances. That alone is Christianity. 

"How do you suppose Christ w T ould view the prevail- 
ing social distinctions? I can think of Him watching here 
in Chicago the long lines of carriages with their occu- 
pants as in our land frittering away the hours of all the 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION 229 

long day to obtain the flimsy greeting of some favorit of 
fashion. How would Christ look at the big banquets sup- 
plied by unpaid labor? How, standing in the aisles of 
fashionabl churches and seeing those there who believ 
that they hav done the civil thing to heven in exhibiting 
for a brief hour their dressmakers' triumfs there? How 
if from there He might wander into one street in White- 
chapel district, where there ar forty saloons in the space 
of one-fourth of a mile, and where all day on their dirty 
windows ar the moving shadows of thinly clad women 
with babies on their arms? Yet such things exist and ar 
ignored by the Christian peopl of to-day. If it were not 
so where would be the women walking the stony streets 
of shame? If Christianity were what it should be, neces- 
sary evil would be a term unknown." 

That is just what the socialists say and the fashionabl 
Christians despise them, forgetting that Christ was a 
communist even. They believ involuntary poverty can 
be abolisht, and so do I, becaus I believ in the New 
Testament. 

What a race of ignorant men we hav in our pulpits to- 
day ! Charity, charity, charity from peopl who ar morally 
stealing, and speak of justice and they will not listen. 
They will go down on their knees before a scoundrel who 
is crushing the life out of hundreds, if he is rich enuf to 
give a large subscription to some church and smile on him 
to the end. Tell him the truth before you take his money ! 
Why don't the masses go to church? Some of these men, 
— but what's the use again? 

It is, indeed, a bad business. Bishop Potter speaks of 
the church, otherwise the men and women composing it, 
deserving the curse of God if it fails in the present emerg- 
ency. The Rev. Wm. Barry says it will be an evil day 
for the church if she- is not redy with an answer to 
the questions that ar rising in the minds of all men 
now. 



2^0 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

The curse of God must be a very serious matter not to 
be lightly spoken of. Before I had red the Bishop's 
speech I had felt something of the sensation that might 
accompany it if such a thing is possibl. Can it be that we 
curse ourselvs when we break His laws in our infernal 
greed ? 

They had me strongly under their influence and said to 
me, — "Unless you do such and such a thing in such a time 
God Himself will curse you." Wicked, blasfemous, btit 
yon hear worse on erth, it may be, and hold your tungs. 

Whether they fild my mind with something of the feel- 
ing that might be supposed to affect anyone in such a case 
I do not know, but that seemd about the worst few 
minutes I had. I remember saying in a kind of help- 
less terror, "Not that ! Not that ! Anything you like but 
that!" 

Zion's Watchman, a religious paper said lately,- — "Wear 
living in an age of expectancy. The world wide agitation 
and political complications seem not to adjust, and im- 
minent and inevitabl catastrofe, perhaps world wide in 
its results, is impending. " . 

A writer in the same paper says : " The political turbu- 
lence of the world is a sign of danger. Pessimists and 
optimists, scientists and filosofers, politicians, potentates 
and pecpls, and financiers in the press, secular and relig- 
ious, all stare and stand agast at the necessary ' peace (?) 
mesures ' which ar exhausting the nation." 

How ar our ministers as a body getting redy f or the 
change which is coming, and for which so many ar con- 
sciously preparing ? Let the answer come from one of 
themselvs. In a review of a newly publisht book wri- 
ten exclusivly for preachers, the New York "World " says 
that the keynote is in the sentence ' ' We recognize in our- 
selvs, in spite of ourselvs, a prevailing want of faith in 
the reality of God and heven and hell, of the judgment 
and eternity. " 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 23 I 

That is from the Rev. Dr. Gregory to his ministerial 
brethren. 

The object of the book, says the " World," is to call 
up in the mind of the preacher the living faith of the 
dark ages. 

Well, we need a living faith of some kind, and plus the 
science of the nineteenth century it would work miracls. 

The truth of the matter is that many of these men do 
not know how working men ar living. Still allowing 
them to speak for themselves take the following state- 
ment from a reasonabl man among them that shockt me 
when I red it. 

Speaking of the poverty of Christ, Dean Farrar says, 
" His poverty was not indeed, the absorbing, degrading, 
grinding poverty which is always rare and almost always 
remediabl. " 

We ar prepared for anything in these times, but that 
sounds cool. A judicious cours of starvation is what 
some of these men need. I saw the statement in an edi- 
tion of his " Life of Christ " publisht in this country in 
1893. He wrote that with London at his elbow. I herd 
him preach in Westminster Abbey when General Booth's 
book shockt the aristocratic, well-fed gentlmen of 
•'Merrie England." Shockt them for a time, — that 
was all. 

If Dean Farrar has changed his opinions on the ques- 
tion of poverty he ot to strike such a sentence out of his 
book pirated or otherwise in this country. Almost 
always remediabl, is it ? Such a statement is a bitter pill 
for a good many men who hav been crusht while the 
Dean sits in his comfortable study, and the worst of it is 
that it could be duplicated a thousand times over from the 
writings of Christian men. Foxes hav holes, birds hav 
nests, and Deans hav deaneries. 

He says in his book " Eternal Hope " that he felt glad 
to think that Christ never used the harsh language in 



232 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

speaking- of unfortunates that Carlyle did. We might 
reply that we ar very glad indeed to think that Christ 
would never hav been so blind to social conditions as to 
use the kind of language that Dean Farrar does with 
respect to peopl who walk the streets for months seeking 
for work that they cannot find. 

We might also reply that there ar many bishops, deans 
and dignitaries in the Church of England who would not 
hold the fat positions they hav now, and Dean Farrar may 
be one of them, so far as I know, if they had told the 
truth as Carlyle did. I hav often thot of late months that 
if I had to depend on our leading churches for my con- 
ception of Christianity, I would risk the evolutionary 
future, and I hav as fair an idea of what is in store for 
those who do so as most. Oh, yes ; we hav seen the 
deaneries and the rectories, and the ecclesiastical palaces 
of " Merrie England" and likewise of " Merrie America, " 
but- we hav also seen Whitechapel, and the slums and 
dens of the new, selfish continent. And remember, 
if you pleas, that vSancho Quixote has no complaint to 
make for himself except in so far as the evil conditions 
effect us all. 

It has always been the same. Take your stand in that 
window with Madam de Stael and her frend, and see the 
deputies sweep past on the way to save France. The 
princes of the state and the princes of the church march 
along in their gorgeous habiliments, and then, says Louis 
Blanc, injurieusement separes des evegues en rochet et en 
camail, les plebeiens de l'eglise, les cures follow in the 
train of their great superiors, the welthy priests who 
preacht the gospel of Him who became a carpenter. When 
the time of voting came the faithful cures who knew 
something about social conditions voted with the com- 
mon peopl who herd Christ gladly, and the nobis and the 
"higher" clergy fot hard to retain the unjust privileges 
that were crushing France in the mire. They fot as hard 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATON. 233 

as their welthy brethern the bishops, do in the neighbor- 
hood of Westminister to-day, but they were downd. The 
spirit of Christ must triumf in spite of the evil work these 
men ar doing to-day. 

Their theories, as Bishop Potter says, ar outlawed by 
time. "Sancho," said the old knight to his foolish squire, 
"there ar no birds in last year's nests." Poor Sancho 
could not understand why the pilgrimage should not con- 
tinue, and many of our cultured frends ar busy discuss- 
ing the '-classics" while their fellow beings starv and 
wondering why it should not go on. Talk about pos- 
session! These men ar possest by the devil of cultured sel- 
fishness. They build their souls a lordly plesure place 
and tell us to be quiet. Peace? Peace? Too late, gentl- 
men, too late! You liv in the wrong day. Queen Anne 
is ded. 

Now as in the days preceding the abolition of slavery 
the ministers ar at the tail end of the procession. Em- 
bassadors of Christ indeed ! And the pillars of the 
church fleece the poor wretches over whom they hav 
acquired power, and it goes on and they smile and build 
brick and mortar and call it Christianity. "We ar all," 
I herd one of them say. "hammer or anvil." Hammer 
or anvil ! A truly great thing is lerning. 

The troubl is that our conception of the social paradise 
is a littl too exalted to suit the taste of those who ar living 
on stolen goods. "There is no more foolish idea, " said 
the first minister I listened to after I left the hermitage 
"than that environment can make men." It helps won- 
derfully, but you see this gentlman gets twelv thousand 
dollars a year besides other prequisites, and he goes to 
hCurope for three months annually. His environment is 
plesant enuf, you will observ. But in the city in which he 
preaches hundreds of children ar starvd to deth every 
summer for want of food and fresh air. Environment 
might help them a littl. Don't you think so? What 



234 OU.K L'NSEEM COMPANIONS. 

do you think of putrid, blinded churchianity? No wonder 
working- men stay away from church. It is as rotten in 
some respects as the Roman Catholic church was before 
the reformation. 

Sacred property is clearly thretend once more in the 
history of the human race, and the fight is to be a serious 
one. The ministers hav been preaching luv and it does 
not seem to work so well as it should, perhaps becaus they 
hav been denying justice which is included in luv. They 
shout luv, and they will not giv even justice. There is 
something wrong. Suppose we try justice and see if luv 
will spring out of it. Giv every man justice and w T ho 
will escape whipping? True, true, very true, gentlmen, 
and you would dance as lively as the rest of us it may be. 

Why ar working men staying aw- ay from church in such 
numbers? Just look at the matter calmly. Look back at 
any of the great movements in human history. Can you 
point to one that happend without a caus? The move- 
ment of working men away from the church has been, 
great enuf to be entitled to a place in contemporary his- 
tory — even the ministers acknowledge that — Is there not 
some reason for it? Don't you suppose that they ar get- 
ting tired of your ecclesiastical red tape and ten million 
dollar cathedrals?' What a glorious conception that was, 
to be sure ! 

"What do you think of royalty, sire," askt a lady of his 
Majesty one day. "Madam," was the reply, "that is the 
business I make my living by." And for the same reason 
I approve of cathedral building from the selfish stand- 
point, but with Christians living where they cannot get a 
breth of fresh air? Hush! I wish we had Paul to settl 
these questions for a few hours. I like fine buildings and 
look forward to the time when we shall hav something 
like the faith of the middl ages that reard the glorious 
buildings we admire ^o-day, but in the city of New York? 
And now? Clearly the devil is at work. 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 235 

What is to be the end of the fight that is even now 
going on in the United States between the havs and the 
hav-nots in spite of the frantic denials of plutocratic jour- 
nals and magazines? Henry Norman, who distinguisht 
himself in the Venezuelan difficulty writes an articl in 
Scribner's Magazine for April, 1896. He tells of a con- 
versation he had with a man "who from his personal char- 
acter, his intimate acquaintance with all parts of the 
United States and his position as the most responsibl and 
conspicious person in the country engaged in the official 
maintenance of good order was the highest authority on 
such a matter." Mr. Norman askt this very distinguisht 
man, who appears to bump his hed against the stars, 
whether he did not think the most terrific fight that has 
ever been known between the havs and the hav-nots was 
destind to take place in the United States. 

"Yes," he replied, "but we will win." 

"That order will win," comments Mr. Norman, "is cer- 
tain, but is it not astonishing that no one seems to be pre- 
paring for the conflict?" 

Win what? A pig's paradise, for that is just what America 
would be if some of these fine gentlmen had their way. 
Win the right to trampl down human beings as has been 
done for so many centuries, that is what they ar after. 
And those who ar being trampld down now, know some- 
thing of the past and ar determind that their children 
ar not to be made into manure any longer. Yes, there is 
no doubt about it, there will be a change or a con- 
flict. * Let us hope that it can be settld at the polls, 
the devil for luvs war and his brood ar shrieking* for it 
to-day. 

We ar told that when a man became a Christian in the 
erly centuries he laid down his arms if a soldie.r, but we 
liv in changed times. The plutocrats may win — I scarcely 
think so — but even if they did their victory would turn 
to dust and ashes in their mouths sooner or later, for they 



2j6 OUR UNSEEN companions. 

ar living and profiting- by a system that makes evil 
spirits smile — if they ever do it. 

What part ar the churches going to take in the great 
fight? It is to be "onward Christian soldiers," it appears, 
h>ut which side ar they going to fight for? And ar they 
sure they ar choosing the right one? They ar turning 
their church parlors into armories and drilling their boys 
in order that they may be redy for the slaughter. On 
the one side of a street in New York is thehedquartersof 
the Salvation Army. On the other side, fronting it, is an 
armory three or four times as large. One or the other 
has to be stampt out. Which? 

Sancho Quixote made some ugly mistakes, but when 
he looks over the field and sees how his brother Christians 
ar comporting themselvs he tries to feel cheerful. It was 
an eminent Christian who discourses charmingly on luv 
who started this rotten, boy-soldier, patriotic craze. He 
is welcome to all the credit of the invention. I wonder 
where the inspiration for that brilliant conception of 
latter day Christianity came from ? 

There is something wrong. Luv thy neighbor as thy- 
self is very, very plain. It would put an end to war in 
a very short time, and yet it seems we must carry out 
on American soil the ideas that hav curst Europe for 
centuries. Mr. Norman need not be so pessimistic ; he 
need not mourn as those who hav no hope. We hav been 
making some "preparations for the conflict." Most of 
our largest cities hav armories like midieval castls and the 
knights ar redy to distinguish themselvs as of ©Id. A 
pity that men ar so easily trapt by the bait of welth, for 
the time comes when they hav to leav it. 

How many " Christians " were shrieking for war with 
the United Kingdom the other day as if war were a light 
matter.' What did Prince Eugene say about it in his day ? 
"A military man becomes so sick of bloody scenes in 
war that in peace he is avers to recommend it. I wish 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION 2$" 

the first minister who is called to decide on peace and 
war had only seen activ servic. " 

But the warriors tell us that we don't understand 
Christianity. War they say, is progress. Peace means 
stagnation. 

Take a trip to the frontiers of France and Germany and 
you see their ideal state. They ar now howling for the 
trifling sum of eighty million dollars to fortify this con- 
tinent. They ar becoming anxious about their property. 

Now, the statesmen of Europe ar fools in some respects, 
but they know enuf to let the United States alone.. 
Which one of them would risk it and run the chance of 
setting Europe in a flame ? — for the powder magazine is 
so built that a littl carelessness at one corner will set the 
hole thing in the air. Keep your minds easy, my war- 
like f rends. Trust in God and do the right. There has 
never been a nation in human history that has trusted 
God. " Leav your insane asylum if you like, you fool, ,r 
they said, " but you will only go to a larger one out- 
side," and when our warlike Christians begin to shriek 
for blood after going to church to worship a God of pe ice 
and luv, I think it would be a good idea to roof in- 
some of our large cities and call for the doctors. 

The plutocrats cannot be allowed to grasp the hole 
erth. It will not do, for they would be as unhappy as 
Macedonian Sandy. Listen to another living spirit. 

Come forward, Dean Farrar, if your rufifld fethers ar 
smoothd yet, and tell us all about Tiberius. The Deaut 
marches forward and speaks his piece — 

" The Roman Emperor Tiberius was the most powerful 
living man ; the absolute, undisputed, defied ruler of all 
that was fairest and richest in the kingdoms of the erth. 
There was no control to his power, no limit to his wealth r 
no restraint upon his plesures. What came of it all ? 
He was, as Pliny calls him, the most gloomy of mankind. 
Rarely has there been vouchsafed to the world a more over- 



330 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

whelming proof that its richest gifts ar but "fairy- gold 
that turns to dust and dross " and its most collosal edi- 
fices of personal splendor and greatness no more durabl a 
barrier against the encroachments of misery than ar the 
babe's sandheaps to stay the march of the Atlantic tide. " 

And yet our plutocrats ar madder than old Tiberius. 
They will not lern the lesson. Like the Frenchified 
Prince that Thackeray tells us of in " Henry Esmond," 
they do not want to go to the sermon. They lu v. power, 
and that was what Tiberius luvd. Yes, yes, my logical, 
penetrating frend, they eat only one dinner like your- 
self, but don't you see the secret? It is power that is 
wanted. 

. But a great many men and women hav begun to think 
that it is about time to draw a happy medium somewhere 
between the condition of Tiberius, Lucullus and several 
other deceast gentlmen of note, as it is as well not to 
mention names of our own illustrious monarchs, and 
that of the gutter men. 

I would like to see the social state in such a condition 
that the man who was willing to work could easily hav 
a hous of his own, say of five or six rooms with a bath, 
and stedy work at a good wage. All the rest is lether and 
prunella. I would also like to see such a change as would 
compel those who did not work, being in good helth, to 
starv. This is what Apostl Paul wanted, but it sounded 
rather heretical, did it not ? Your newspapers will fight 
that idea. Do you not supply the "capital?" They will 
say too in the face of starvation that the modest ideal I 
hav set forth is attainabl now for all who ar willing to 
work, and observ all the copy-book virtues, but the 
scoundrels lie, and they know that they lie. 

Carthegenian civilization perisht in a night and what 
is there left of its glories ? And not a few empires of 
the past hav gone down in the dust thru brute selfishness 
and class laws. If ministers told the truth about what is 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 239 

-gfoing on as the Mayor of Chicago did, there would either 
be better Christians in the world or empty benches in the 
churches. I am sometimes tempted to compare the 
demons with some of our smooth friends. They ar not 
hypocrits. They know which side they ar on. 

I hav often wonderd in the past whether America would 
go down and Africa be chosen to carry on the great bat! 
for a higher civilization. 

I cannot believ it possibl, but the brutal, cultured in- 
difference to human suffering that characterizes so many 
of our leading men to-day, tempts me to think that the de- 
spised Negro would do the work better than his white 
brother, for it would seem that if he is givn a fair chance 
he has a kinder hart, and that counts for a good deal in 
the settlment of economic questions. 

I cannot believ it possibl, becaus there ar too many 
men and women now who ar redy to giv up any convic. 
tions they may hav as soon as they ar convinct that they 
ar wrong. They want to do right, and I am sure that 
they will be led in the right direction, but so many of 
them ar distressingly ignorant! They ar too often led by 
the nose as tenderly as asses ar, just thru ignorance. God 
will lead us, but does He not, in the name of common sens, 
expect us to read and inform ourselvs? The Bible is a 
good book, but it does not teach you directly how to make 
a steam engin or use electricity, and yet steam and elec- 
tricity hav changed the world and ar fast making us 
brothers. Do you not believ that this is God's will? Books 
ar cheap — buy a very few, or join a public library and get 
the rust rubd off your hide. Voting is a serious busi- 
ness — a religous duty — take care for whom you vote. 
Satan must not be allowed to destroy another civilization. 

If a .millionaire believs that the present .system is un- 
just and cruel and speaks out against it and tries to change 
it, you can accept his money for your churches with a clear 
conscience, for he is rich as you ar poor — largely owing 



240 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

to the system and not to himself, but if he is still engaged 
bribing, what on erth can yon do but tell him to mend 
his manners at once or take the chance of marring his 
fortunes in the end? 

It is very strange that so many ministers refuse to 
speak out on social questions. It is true that the best 
policy many of them can follow is to hold their peace, for 
as Professor Ely says, the ignorance on economic subjects 
among all classes is deplorabl. But these questions in- 
volv so much that it is time for public teachers to take 
sides. Is it to be Satan or Christ? Satan fills men and 
women with pride, and they struggl like wild beasts to 
heap up millions and build fine castls and strive to excel 
one another in social entertainments, and in their mad 
haste they trampl down men and women and turn their 
heds in another direction and go to church on Sun- 
day. Wages ar reduced till the entrails of the workers- 
scream for mercy, and still there is no break in the swin- 
ish greed. The interest on waterd stock must be paid- 
if the hevens fall, and churches ar to build. Do you say 
that the picture is overdrawn? It happens to be true in 
every word. The oppressors of the poor, those whogrind~ 
their face, sit in the churches to-day that ar built by their- 
Llood money. 

What is the use of writing about it ? They ar defended 
thru thick and thin by their hired men, who with their - 
wives ar striving in their sfere to outshine their rivals, 
and thus the evil spirits gain at both ends thru luxury 
and starvation. ' ' We don't care for your churches, Sancho 
Quixote," they said. " Satan isworshipt there regularly. " 

When I thot of some of the men who occupy the chief. 
seats in the synagog and talk ' ; business is business " thru 
the week, I had to acknowledge that they had some 
grounds or their sneer. 

Here is one man who speaks out in church. Lyman 
Abbot said in a recent sermon, — " If religion is a delu^ 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION 24I 

sion we want to know it. No sweet lie is half so good as 
the bitter truth. I can tmderstand the mental attitude of 
a Paine, or a Voltaire, or a Boilingbrooke, or even an 
Ingersoll, who says, " This religion is a grand delusion, 
a nightmare that priests hav invented to blind the eyes of 
men, a lullaby that has been invented to lull poor babes 
to sleep," and I can understand men who say that re- 
ligion is an inspiring, a divine truth. But the man I 
cannot understand is he who sees this great issue and 
does not care. He is so busy with his stocks and bonds ; 
^he with her afternoon teas and social engagements, that 
they do not care whether there is a good God, whether 
there is a reveald Bible, whether there is an incarnate 
Christ. 

If Christianity is true follow straight after it, and if 
infidelity is true follow straight after that. Face the 
issue; meet it like men. 

That is the. message of Elijah at the foot of Mount 
Carmel. Baal is still in the world, and God is still in the 
world. Surely there ar in America in public life, in charge 
of great newspapers, in not unknown pulpits, in social 
circls, in places of trust and power, not a few who need to 
be aroused by the profet's words: " How long will ye halt 
and totter between two opinions ? If God be your God, 
follow straight after Him, and if Baal be your God, 
follow straight after him." 

Most of us can understand language of that kind, and 
it can be herd from the mouths of hundreds of hard- 
working, zelous ministers who ar doing their best to im- 
prove the condition of those whom Satan has driven into 
the mud very often thru the instrumentality of the welthy 
peopl w^ho sit in their brothers' churches and pray to the 
same God. You say the men and women who go down 
ar not Christians ? Do you think it is a good way to win 
them to send them to the slums and starvation ? 

When Paul came near a city at one time all the Chris- 



24^ OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

tians went forth to meet him. They were a fr.en.dly 
people evidently. When Coxey's army went thru the land 
with perhaps not a few Christians in it, tired and hungry 
and weary of the struggl, they were not allowed to halt in 
some of the towns and the newspapers sneerd and laft. 
In some respects we hav become a satanic peopl. 

"There is no dout in my mind," says Bjornstjerne 
Bjornson, ' ' that the modern state, whether you call it 
monarchy or republic, is a mere leag of the powerful 
to keep their hold upon the good things of life." No 
dout in the minds of a good many others either, 
Bjornstjerne. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

An Angel Asks Me, "What Do Christans Mean?" 

One of my plesantest memories is a short conversation 
during a lull in the storm. A woman's voice spoke tome 
— a sweet, strong voice full of courage that made me 
ashamed of myself as it askt the question — "What do 
Christians mean?" 

We had been conversing on social problems and the ques- 
tion came in a kind of a wondering, astonisht way as if the 
conduct of Christian peopl was past speaking about. I 
believ that is a common question among our unseen 
f rends. Do you really think that I hav spoken too strong- 
ly in the last chapter? 

Take the "patriotic" question. I find that I am far too 



"What Do Christians Mean?" 243 

idealistic. I red a littl speech this morning in which one 
lemed man spoke to others, and after assuring them, as 
usual, that by virtue of their lerning they were the salt of 
the erth, he threw out a few hints on patriotism. It seems, 
according to him, that the New Testament kind that re- 
fuses to recognizes boundaries is out of place. The men 
who believ in it ar dreamers, and so on. So be it. There 
is a kind of patriotism that is justifiabl and proper — the 
feeling that a rabbit has for its hole in the ground, and 
the luv for our country and our institutions if they ar bet- 
ter than those of any other nation, such a luv, for exampl, 
as a nativ of the best country in the world to-day — I mean 
Switzerland: — may indulge in, but the shoddy kind, the 
fashion abl kind, the God bless our country right or wrong 
kind, is loathsome. And it may be too, in spite of the 
opposition of many church members, that the New Testa- 
ment kind will yet win. The satanic patriotism that 
some loud uloutht gentlmen ar yelling for to-day has 
turnd Europe into a military camp. 

That is what I hav thot on the patriotic question for 
some years, and when I herd demons raging around me, 
to whom all countries and all languages ar alike, whose 
one object is to drag peopl down thru satanic patriot- 
ism or by any other means, I felt just a trifl bitter over 
the yelpings of those men who, if they could succeed, 
would turn this continent from the high destiny that I be- 
liev God has laid out for her if she walk in His ways — the 
destiny to bind the peopls of the erth together and to form 
so many ties of relationship with Europe that from every 
city and from every hamlet on both sides of the Atlantic 
a stern protest would rise up from those who had any 
regard for Christianity at the mere mention of war, so 
that at least one peopl would get a chance to show what 
Christian civilization might be unhampered by the curse 
of militaryism and so force the nations of Europe to their 
senses. But to follow Europe! What a low ideal! 



244 °U R UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

I am rather tired of those persons who swagger around 
with a chip on their shoulder spoiling for a fight. Just 
suppose, now, to carry it to the limit, that you were act- 
ually insulted. What, then? A war after the old brutal 
Roman idea? Force, according to an editor whose opinion 
I red lately, has always ruled the world and always will. 
When I come to believ that I will quietly take hold of the 
New Testament and the Old likewise and tear them to 
pieces, and pitch them in the fire. I like to be on one 
side or another. God says luv, men say force, and we know 
what a hell they hav made of this world to millions thru 
their satanic ideas. I would like to try it by the other 
route. 

And so with the millionaires. It is not likely that they 
will pay much attention to what I, or any one els, may 
say ; but suppose they repent, who has a right to say a 
word of their past mercilessness? Nobody, according to 
good sound scripture. But if they still send their brazen- 
jawed, conscienceless attorneys to defeat the will of the 
peopl • by bribery and scoundrelism and they fatten off 
the spoil what can we say? 

I believ, then, that these great beings who ar around us 
often ask themselvs, "What do Christians mean?" Thous- 
ands and tens of thousands of them ar doing everything 
they should in a way that makes us ashamed of ourselvs 
but they hav littl power compared with their welthy 
brethern in a worldly sens, altho they hold the common- 
welth together, but the plain truth is that if one in ten of 
the nominal Christians in the United States were to liv 
the doctrins of the New Testement even approximately, 
there woiild be a revolution in our civilization before the 
end of one calendar month. As for the millionaire Chris- 
tians they could build the city of God that Bellamy told 
us about, but that's a sore subject. The most of them 
would rather build a castl in the wilderness. They ar too 
ethereal to walk in the ways that Paul pointed out. They 



AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 245 

ar the monks of the new time and want to leav the rude 
world with all its strife behind them. 

" O, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
Some boundless contiguity of shade,. 
Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 
Of successful or unsuccessful war 
Shall never reach me more " 

"Our nation," says " Zion's Watchman," " is fast 
growing away from God, and the only way to turn 
aside His judgments is to lead our peopl to honor Him." 

Special providences you don't belie v in, you say, and 
so say I. Natural law holds the field, and that is what 
the demons told me many a time when I did not like to 
hear it in their sens, but in a higher sens it is true, only 
we must understand that what we call special providences 
ar open to every one if he supplies the conditions— there 
is nothing special about that, only some men will not 
supply the conditions. No, my frend, the Bradstreet 
standard is not the only one, and a man to your eyes 
unsuccessful may come out at the right end of the horn 
in the long run. 

And natural law perhaps reaches further than we im- 
agin. Suppose an answer to prayer is only a part of 
a natural law ? Prayer should bring calmness, and 
demons lose their power if we remain calm. 

" All is of God! If He but wave His hand, 

The mists collect, the rain falls thick ami loud, 
Till with a smile of li^rhton sea and land 
Lo! He looks back from the departing- cloud." 

What do many Christians mean, judging by the stand 
they take on the question of intoxicating liquors ? How 
many abstain for the sake of those who ar not strong 
enuf to withstand the temptation? Do you know what 
kind of a hell they create ? 

I used to wonder how it was that drunk men could act 
and talk as they do, but now I know how it is done. They 
put their nervs in the proper condition for evil spirits to 
be abl to control them. When you see a man rolling: 



24b OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

along- drunk you see a man possest. The demons use 
him to do their work. Some ar abl to resist, others 
ar not. * 

Here is what Cardinal Manning said on the subject,— 
" For thirty-five years I hav been priest and bishop in 
London, and now I approach my eightieth year. I hav 
lernt some lessons and the first thing is this : The chief 
bar to the working of the Holy Spirit of God in the souls 
of men and women is intoxicating drink. I know no 
antagonist to the good Spirit more direct, more sutl, 
more stelthy, more ubiquitous, than intoxicating drink. 
Tho I hav known men and women destroyed for all man- 
ner of reasons, yet I know of no caus that affects man, 
women and child and home with such universal and stedy 
power as intoxicating drink. " 

And in France, too, the land of moderate drinking, 
things seem to be moving crab-fashion. Leading French- 
men ar becoming alarmed over the ravages of strong 
drink as any one may easily find out. The following 
quotation from the " Helth Magazine," Baltimore, will 
serv as an illustration of what is going on : ' ' A writer 
in France says that the manufacture and consumption of 
alcohol in that country is degrading the peopl mentally, 
morally and fisically, and filling the hospitals, asylums 
and prisons. These fisical wrecks bring into the world 
miserabl offspring which inherit a weak body and soon 
show the tastes of their parents. The great danger seems 
to be in the consumption of liquors made from essences, 

* On the 16th of September, a man kild a child in the streets of New York 
with a single bio of his fist. He was a well behaved man, industrious, and 
had never been arrested before. He had swallowed a few galses of beer at 
most, and the tragedy hapend shortly after. He was possest for that short 
time. It was not he who struck the bio, but the demon who possest him. He 
did not know anything about it when he came to himself next morning-. I 
was caut for about five or at most ten minutes, as described in Chapter XIV. 
It is possession, and they catch a good many who drink. 

Sum kases ov kleptomania ar explanabl upon the same theory — a sudden 
impuls and the mischief is done, and the victim does not know how it hapend 
aitho the nervs must be in a certain state before the demous get the power. 



" WHAT DO CHRISTIANS MEAN ?' 



2.47 



and especially absinthe, which is said to be as fascinating 
as it is harmful. If the government would take entire 
control of the manufacture of alcohol and forbid the 
making, importation and use of dangerous essences, 
the evils of drinking in France would be very much 
lessened. " 

That would help to some extent, but whatever may be 
said of Latin countries, there is only one solution to 
the question among English-speaking peopls, and that is 
absolute prohibition, I hav always believd that this was 
the sole cure, but hav lookt upon government control as 
perhaps the only thing that was practical at present. I 
hav lernt some lessons lately and one of them is to go to 
the root of the drink curse by abolishing the traffic. But 
what do Christians mean ? Paul has much to answer for 
in that littl advice he gave Timothy. It has been made 
the excuse for. customs and debauchery that would make 
his hair rise if he were on erth now. The stuff they 
drank in those days was not to be compared to our fiery 
compounds, but the excuse holds. Paul has much to 
answer for, becaus, according to my view, verbal inspira- 
tion will not work. 

And what do they mean with their planchets, their crys- 
tal gazing, their medium visiting, their tabl tipping, and 
all the rest of the evil work ? I am deceivd, thou art 
deceivd, he is deceivd, we ar deceivd, you ar deceivd, 
they ar deceivd. I hav givn my own experience regard- 
less of the experience of others. If they find nothing 
but good in their investigations, so be it. I know the 
source of their information and yours too when you inquire 
about your ded relations. 

Now, in the name of common sens, not to say anything 
of Christianity, which side ar you on ? Satan worship or 
the worship of God ? What do Christians mean ? A good 
many seem to think that this is a sort of a play ground where 
they can do as they pleas, and yet every word we utter. 



2 + S OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

every tliot we think, every action we commit, counts on 
one side or the other, and as the hole tmivers is bound 
together our influence spreds in a way that should frighten 
us occasionally. Suppose your sins ar forgivn and you 
escape the evolutionary struggl what about honor ? Read 
what Paul says on the subject. 

Were you one of the bloodthirsty Christians in the late 
war scare? If so, did you realize that Satan was using 
you as a mouthpiece ? Ar you building armories or 
drilling your boys to be soldiers ? Can you think of 
Christ with a gun in his hand ? Well, does the New 
Testament mean what it says, or is it a lie ? Read Tolstoy 
if you will not read it. What do they really mean ? Which 
side ar they really on ? I never knew what the expression 
" fight like the devil " ment till lately. They fight with a 
savage ernestness for war, and hate, and a good many 
well-drest Christian men and women fight with them. 

"Our boys" was the gloating expression I of ten herd 
from them, and my hart sickend at it, it was so like 
their jingo servants in the flesh, "our boys hav taken 
sides, and speak out in all places and under all circum- 
stances. Why ar Christians so cowardly? Why is it neces- 
sary to pray and groan and sing hymns as you all do when 
our side does its work without any troubl?" 

' 'You raise up even these spirits when you act after the 
spirit of Christ, " was what I was told. We do not know. 
As I hav said I do not want to go to the evolutionary 
future, but our conduct here may help or hinder them 
there. It is all speculation. I know one thing, however, 
and that is. that if they were in our position they would 
work while we sleep, for good I hope, but on one side or 
another. 

There is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that we ar 
confronted with serious times. In the battl that is going 
on between brutality, and entrench welth and selfish- 
ness on the one hand, and luv on the other, which side ar 



" WHAT DO CHRISTIANS MEAN ? 2A<) 

you on? It lias either to be God or Mammon, and no 
amount of soft talk from welthy pulpits can change it. 
Luv thy neighbor as thyself, is far too plain for these 
gentry. Is it not rather singular that few ministers ar 
ever seen at workingmen's meetings, or that few of them 
read workingmen's papers? How did it happen that in 
the erly church there was such a frendship between the 
common peopl and their teachers? And wmat is the mat- 
ter now? As I hav said, I think there is going to be a re- 
yival of faith that will lead to works, but insted of thank- 
ing the ministers for it, as a class, we should rather turn to 
the advanct political economists who hav shown us that 
God is luv, that He has sent enuf for us all, that parson 
Mai thus was inspired by the devil, and that only a brutal, 
swinish, Roman conception of society has brot.us to our 
present state insted of the conception that came from 
Nazareth. Read the fifth chapter of James and see if 
there is a socialist of them all who goes further, read "Luv 
thy neighbor as thyself,'' and then think of what it would 
mean. Many a man has turnd his back upon Christianity 
in these days becaus he has mistaken some clothes-rack in 
a pulpit for the gospel. It is a mistake. You do not 
need to depend upon them. Read the democratic book 
yourself — the book that puts the pretensions of our shod- 
dy, oppressing plutocracy to shame. 

There ar some now-a-days who speak of the second 
coming of Christ. For any Fake let us put the hous in 
some kind of order first. Let us copy the erly church in 
some respects, at least. It was composed of "cranks," 
"fanatics," " enthusiasts," or whatever you pleas, but in 
the modern frase, they ment business. 

Every man has his price, is a doctrin I hav herd 
preacht hundreds of times in this country, and I hav 
stedily denied it even while I had no obligation as a 
Christian to do so. It is a doctrin of Satan — an accursed 
doctrin that would drag down any country if universally 



250 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

believd in. What on erth do Christians mear? ? Read the 
reviews and yon will find out to what a fearful extent 
bribery has gone. Read of the sums the great political 
parties ar raising even now for corruption and make all 
due allowance for exaggeration, and you will begin to 
see where, we ar drifting, but there ar more than seven 
thousand who hav not yet bowed the knee to Baal. Deny 
the lying statement every time you hear it, and you will 
do a hundred times more good than some of the scoun- 
drels who ar waving a flag in one hand and accepting or 
giving a bribe with the other. 

What do we mean by so much palm waving and twanging 
of harps and walking up the golden streets ? We need a 
littl bracing up once in a while, but don't you think w r e 
overdo the matter ? There is so much around us that 
needs to be remedied that, bad as it is sometimes, I feel 
that I could not afford to go just at present. , 

When we drop thru the arch, like the pilgrims in Addi- 
son's strange and beutiful vision of Mirza, it will be time 
enuf to begin palm waving. We ar not yet near the arch 
as a civilization; we ar not even out of the woods, and we 
ot to clear a better pathway for those who ar to follow as 
the only men worth remembering did for us. 

Behind all the mistery lies the wise purpose of ou~ 
Lord. The erth is full of the glory of the Lord and the 
lievensshow forth His handiwork. His luv is greater than 
our comprehension. Happy ar they, indeed, who, seeing 
to the full the poetry and, the grandeur of our present 
life, open to the, humblest in some respects as well as to 
the welthiest, can look forward to the glory of the life 
that lies in the future when we shall scale the highest 
hevens, when the misteries of to-day will be reveald 
to us, and we shall see that we, and not God, were to 
blame for most of our suffering. 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REV0IR. 25 1 

" Till deth the weary spirit free 
Thy God hath said, * f Tis grood for thee 
To walk by faith and not by sight.* 

Take it on trust a littl while, 
Soon shalt thou read the mistery aright 

Io the full sunshine of His smile," 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
The Time Spirit and Au Revoir. 

Mgr. D'Hulst, than whom no prelate is more highly es- 
teemed in Europe, says, "Every epoch has its moral 
crisis. Ours manifests itself by a weariness of spirit, which 
no longer knows how to grasp at truth, and which is dis- 
mayed when the plain truth is reveald. The difficulty of 
believing has reacht the masses and has become ignorance 
and contempt of the invisibl. The resvilt is a great moral 
chill. 

"The unbelief of the masses freezes the atmosfere 
which we breath, and even renders more difficult for en- 
lightend souls that belief which explains life, that hope 
which consoles it and that charity which makes it fruitful. 
Those who hav brot about this state of things hav com- 
mitted a grave crime. They ar beginning to be conscious 
of it, but they hesitate to confess it and they ar power- 
less to repair it. Reparation will come by means of men 
of great faith. The next century will giv birth to saints, 
and their action will hav boundless effect, since it will 
confound those who hav utterly forgotten the gospel. "■■■ 



2 $2 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

•* The Zeitgeist strides upon his way, oblivious to fears, 
Down Fate's great turnpike thorofare that stretches thru the years. 

" Beside this turnpike thro fare that stretches thorough the years 
Lived Charles Erastus Goutoseed with numerous compeers. 

•* And Charles Erastus Gontoseed with terror stood agast, 
The Zeitgeist traveid at a gait so reckless and so fast. 

" So Charles Erastus Gontoseed stood in his onward track 
To restl with the Zeitgeist and persuade him to hold back. 

«* The Zeitgeist saw not Gontoseed; his look was far away. 
But left behind his trampld form mixt with the miry clay. 

*• Beside this turnpike thorofare that stretches thru the years 
Livd William Henry Schlamahed with numerous compeers. 

" And his impulsiv temperament chafed in a restless wo. 
The Zeitgeist traveid at a gait so lumberly and slow. 

** So William Henry Schlamahed, the boldest of his race, 
Stole in behind the Zeitgeist to accelerate his pace. 

" Stole in behind the Zeitgeist to accelerate his flight , 
And lunged against the Zeitgeist's back and pusht: with all bis 
might. 

" The Zeitgeist traveid on his $vay rapped in eternal peace, 
And no one saw his rate of speed perceptibly increas. 

" But Schlamahed he pusht so hard his nervous system broke,. 
And he lay stretchd a victim to an apoplectic shock. 



" The Zeitgeist times his marching over mountains and ravines 
To the music of an orchestra that plays behind the scenes. 

44 Tho we hear not that high, far strain, we march with all our peers, 

To the music of the footfalls of thd Z Mt^eist thru the ye.irs 

" And the music of those footfalls, tho we know not what it means, 
Is the raiHic of the orchestra that plays behind the scenes." 

—Sam Walter Fess. 
From the New Yi>?'kSun, by permission. 

The Zeitgeist, as yott see, is a peculiar kind of a being. 
He is very powerful, but in spite of the abuv he can be 
persuaded to go fast or slow or turn his nose in such and 
such a direction if he is approacht in the right way. He 
seems to be going in the right direction now, but the 
editors say he must never be allowed to step over the red 
mark they hav drawn across his path. They ar powerful 
men, but he may be a littl too strong for them. We shall 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 253 

Watch the stfuggl with much interest. He is making 
things lively in all corners of the world now, in politics 
and religion and there ar man}' comf ortabl souls in church 
and state who do not luv him, but he will not rest until 
something happens. 

And he is leading us in the right direction too so far as 
our future destinyi s concernd. There ar perhaps some 
who read this book, who like myself before my fight, hav 
ceast to believ in the divinity of Christ. Argument is of 
comparativly littl use with them. We ar endowed with 
reason certainly, and we ar expected to use it, but we do 
not understand everything, and it is becaus everything 
Is not made plain that many ar forsaking the old paths 
and laying up troubl for themselvsin the future. Tosuch 
I would only say — Never mind what the great men tell 
you : Read the New Testament and judge for yourselvs. 
Lay aside the commentaries and ask yourselvs if the men 
who rote the books were liars or honest men. Could 
Christ hav been deceivd as to His mission? Read his 
words and judge for yourself whether they ar the words 
of a man who did not know what he was talking about. 
Were the men who wrote of His resurrection liars ? You 
do not believ in inspiration, you say, but *yet a kind of 
inspiration goes on every day in your own hed. vSupose 
the general meaning of the P3ible is plain why troubl 
j^ourself about technicalities ? Consider the matter care- 
fully and then read the extract from Dr. Abbot's sermon 
and take sides. 

Plenary inspiration is nonsensical according to my 
view. I thot when I came into contact with the hiddn 
beings that I would be abl to take my pencil and begin 
shorthand writing and lay some wonderful books before 
you, but the idea makes me laf now. You see, it did not 
work. The book I hav ritn has cost me troubl. "God 
does not want mediums, "I was told one day, "He wants 
men." Preciselv so. He does not want machines; He 



254 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

wants free-will agents who think and choose for themselvs; 
who come to understand certain facts and tell of them in 
their own way. "Do not think for a minute," they told 
me again, "that if you were a medium in our power only, 
and not in that of your enemies as well .hat you would 
hay an easy life. We would make you do things for 
Jesus Christ's sake that you shrink from now." That is 
just it. The good angels, like the demons, mean business, 
and look upon our playing as we look upon that of chil- 
dren. 

"You will add a new book to the Bible," the other side 
told me. Certainly, and I hav done it. The Bible is be- 
ing added to every day. Every book publisht with sound 
views, is in a manner, as this one is, a new book added to 
the Bible, altho that stands alone as recording certain facts. 
Ar Christians mad? I hav often askt myself. Is God's 
Holy Spirit not pouring knowledge upon them every 
day? We ar all inspired. I came to understand certain 
things during my fight in a way that surprised me, but 
I hav told them to you in my own language. Small mis- 
takes may hav been made but the main points ar true. 
So with the Bible, I believ. Christ was crucified in a city 
of 290,000 inhabitants and it was not done in a corner. 
The men who wrote the records of His life were helpt in 
their work. They told the truth as it came to them, or 
as they saw it, in their own way. They were not machines 
or mediums, but men. It is God's wish that we should 
manage this world ourselvs, but He leads us further on 
as the ages roll past. 

The Sermon on the Mount, I hav red, was very likely 
reported in shorthand. 

Never mind the fashion abl churchianity that is around 
you. There is a good deal of Christianity in the world 
yet, and besides, each man has to stand in his own shoes 
without taking the hypocrisy of others as an excuse for 
his own infidelity. Judge for yourself. In politics, reli- 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 255 

gion, science or anything els get all the information you 
can on both sides and then form yotir own judgment. 
The world is overflowing with lerned fools with college 
degrees. The most of them grow their eyes among their 
back hair. Judge for yourself. 

I know, whatever others may say, that we ar surround- 
ed by a great cloud of witnesses, the one side trying to 
raise us up, the other trying to drag us down. It is likely 
that Christ walkt thru the world and saw them — that is 
Dr. Hepworth's opinion, and it seems reasonabl enuf, at 
least for the years of His ministry. I know that they ar 
very much in ernest and that we sleep. Now, then, in 
view of this fact which is so impressiv to me that many 
of our littl worries vanish into nothingness, I would like 
to advise those who ar not of the household of faith to be 
warned in time, and it not a professional exorter.who 
givs this advice, but one who has not given much of the 
same kind in past years. We all get warnings, more or 
less, and this is another to you. 

It is a stranger world than you think. I wrote all this 
book in shorthand, but as I went on typewriting it from 
day to day I sometimes added a few paragrafs. I would 
write on without looking at my notes, and after I turnd 
to them I would often find that I had ritn a hundred 
words or more almost the same as lay before me in the 
shorthand that I had not yet red. A few of the words 
might be changed, but the ideas were the same. You may 
say that writing on the same f ase of the subject I uncon- 
sciously chose the same words, but it lookt strange to me 
to see the words on the two papers almost the same after 
lying unred for weeks or months. Can M. Sarcey's theory 
explain it? 

There ar dozens and scores of sentences woven in the 
cours of the narrativ that I receivd from voices, by rit- 
ing on the brain, or by telepathy. What does it matter 
whether they ar of high or low quality or no quality at all? 



256 OUR UN'SEKN COMPANIONS. 

The interesting thing is that they came. From whom? 
There has L een my troubl to decide very often. 

In riting the last chapter, for exampl, I spoke of their 
being too much time devoted to palm waving and twang- 
ing of harps, and as an illustration I had partly ritn 
"We ar something like Sterne, who whined over a 
ded donkey, and neglected to reliev a living mother, 
when we go into raptures over the future and neglect our 
fellow beings. " Then it struck me that altho the illus- 
tration was good in one sens it was bad in another. It is 
not exactly right to speak of joyous anticipations of 
lieven in the same breth as whining over a ded donkey. 
Who suggested the illustration so apt to express unmean- 
ing in one sens but of such bad odor in another? I know. 

"Their defence of the present condition of affairs is 
neither more nor less than the outpourings of impudent 
rascality. " Where do you suppose the last four words 
came from? I was thinking over social problems one day 
and they came on the brain as the French did. For what 
purpose? Sent by which side? Does it do any good to 
tell the truth to the millionaires and their educated lack- 
eys, or is it just as well to smile and let the children die? 
We know what the truth is. After accepting the gospel 
doctrin ar we supposed to speak out or to hold our tungs? 
Where do you suppose "educated lackeys" came from? 
It was down before I thot of it, but it is true. Doesit do 
any good to tell the truth or shall we smile while scound- 
rels bribe and the children die?. 

Grand, indeed, will be our destiny if we receiv the 
Gospel of Christ as littl chileren and liv as He would hav 
ns. If we lay aside this false, intellectual pride which 
lias ever been the bane of the human race, we shall likely 
enuf look back over our life on erth after we hav crost the 
line that separates us from the invisibl world and wonder 
at our folly in priding ourselves upon the petty scientific 
triumfs that charm us now. 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 257 

How a man can be an agnostic lias always been beyond 
my comprehension. Napoleon pointed to the stars when his 
officers wonderd if there was a God. Look up at the stars 
and be assured that they did not grow of themselvs any 
more than you did. 

And now with my opinions unchanged on the subject 
of fashionabl churchianity, and fashionabl ministers I, 
like many others, hav to thank that Christianity which 
to-day keeps our weary old world from becoming com- 
pletely rotten. The best Christians ar those who do thei r 
work in the world and ar seldom herd of, while the honor 
ofen goes to the ecclesiastical flag-wavers, but there is 
another court of appeal where a good many of our judg- 
ments will be reverst. 

I hav told the truth in this book. It has all hapend 
just as I hav described it, altho to tell it fully would 
take haf a dozen volumes, but it would simply be a repiti- 
tion of what I hav repeated perhaps too ofen with the 
idea of driving the lesson home. The enemy in our case 
is not only at the gates, he is within the citidel and h$ 
has murder in his hart. 

I hav a great many plesant memories of the struggl: it 
was not all one sided, but it is needless to say that I do 
not mean to meet my f rends again in any other way than 
God has been pleasd to arrange until we meet face to 
face, and I hav come out of it with the consciousness that 
but for the help we all receiv every hour of our lives, I 
would be up to the neck again, and that is worth some- 
thing,— 

" I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 
Shoodst lead me on, 

I luvd to choose and see my path ; but now- 
Lead Thou me on. 

I luvd the grarish day. and, spite of fears 
Pride ruled my will ; remember not past years," 

I had a deep conviction that I would come out of it 
scard a littl, perhaps, but still fit for service, and this 



258 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS, 

held me up. I might as well thank some of our advanct 
political economists for the grand conception of God they 
ar spreading' in the world, for if I had not lernt the 
lesson they taut me I would not hav had the trust in 
His goodness that comforted me in troubl. The minis- 
ters ar not the only preachers. They of ten tell us of a . 
God who givs one man a hundred million dollars and 
starvs his neighbor, and that conception of God does not 
commend and never has commended itself to me. The 
new economists tell us of a God who has provided sufficient 
for all of His children, the just and the unjust, as soon 
as they will change their laws into harmony with His and 
do justice. We know in whom we trust; but it is not the 
God that some of these men preach, nor in whom some of 
their women hearers belie v. 

The foregoing paragraf was ritn a week ago, and I 
had no intention of adding more to the book, but as some 
critic may still think I hav been speaking too plainly just 
let me giv the following editorial from the New York 
k 'World" of July 3rd. I hav red a great many strange state 
ments of late years, and herd some strange claims made, but 
such a piece of impudence as Mr. Rockefeller's assertion 
I hav never come across. I giy it as an illustration of 
the kind of God some men believ in. Mr. Rockefeller's 
welth is sometimes estimated as high as $150,000,000, all 
" ernd" in a lifetime. And men willing to work often 
starve! Talk about insanity! 

HEVEN AND TRUST MONEY. 

* k In addressing the Chicago University Mr. John D. 
Rockefeller, one of the chief organizers and beneficia- 
ries of the Standard Oil Company, made a claim to divine 
right as bold as any which has been advanct since the 
great controversy on that subject in the time of Charles I. 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 259 

4 God gave me my money and I giv it to the university, ' 
said Mr. Rockefeller. 

' ' This is to some a very alluring theory, and it is fre- 
quently advanct now as it was some hundreds of years 
ago. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there 
was at every cross-roads a captain of industry preying on 
commerce and taking forct loans from trade, and out of 
the vast estates thus accumulated hospitals, monasteries 
and churches were built as a means of sanctifying the 
cistern and establishing its divine right to exist. 

"If Mr. Rockefeller has from $20,000,000 to $100,000,- 
000 that he has not ernd, every newspaper reader in the 
country knows that it is not the gift of Heven, but that 
it came thru the Standard Oil Trust, one of the most un- 
scrupulous and rapacious monopolies ever organized. It 
has bot conventions, corrupted courts, bribed legislatures 
and done more to demoralize American politics than any 
other singl agency. Its principles ar depraved, its prac- 
tices degrading, its success shameful, its impudence col- 
lossal. 

"But no amount of impudence will ever convince any 
sensibl person that it is either the business partner or the 
beneficiary of God. Mr. Rockefeller must find a more 
plausibl theory if he wishes sane peopl to listn to 
him. " 

Yet, the theory is advanct from not a few pulpits. 

There ar thick skuld ministers in this country on their 
knees before this man. He btiilds churches, and that is 
enuf. If you want to know what the Trust he controls 
has done read Henry D. Lloyd's book, "Weltb against 
Common welth." The oil he sells flows freely in rivers 
from the bosom of the erth. God has givn us such mar- 
velous natural riches that it seems almost unnecessary to 
pray for our daily bred, and yet thousands starv. Did He 
giv Mr. Rockefeller a title deed to the oil? Or is it your 
laws that ar at fault? God will help us, I believ, but He 



2 0O OUR VNSKKN COMPANIONS, 

has no favorits- -and it is not my belief that He makes 
millionaires. He seems to believ in eqitality among His 
children. He did not want the Israelites to choose a king, 
nor does He want the Americans. Oil kings ar not made 
by God, but by fools republican and fools democratic. 

The retail price of the oil that Mr. Rochefeller sells 
rose from 10 cents a gallon to 18 in a siiiglweek last year. 
Who gave the order for the rise in price? It is the old 
story of taxation without representation. 

"The luv of exercising power has been found to be so 
universal," says Buckle in his " History of Civilization," 
' ' that no class of men who hav possest authority hav 
been abl to avoid abusing it. " 

And yet there ar thousands and tens of thousands of 
ignoramuses on this continent who believ that becaus 
the name of kingly power has been done away with that 
the thing itself does not exist. 

" You cannot find any yung Americans now," said a 
European professor, "with any self-sacrificing enthu- 
siasm. All they care for is to make money." 

That is carrying it too far, but what kind of yung men 
and women lisend to Mr. Rockefeller? Woe is me! 
Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory is departed. The poor, 
foolish yung creatures should hav interrupted the poor, 
foolish man and told him gently that he was far astray in 
his conception of God. He worships a supreme tyrant 
insted of a God of luv. 

It is lafabl too. No wonder they dischargd one of the 
professors of political economy at the Chicago University 
a year ago. He was guilty of telling unplesant truths. 
He was rash enuf to condemn the foul system we liv 
under. He told of a God of luv, not a demon. He spoke 
of a sistem which would help men to take better care of 
themselvs, save thousands from starvation and destroy 
the power of Satan, and that doctrin is not popular among 
those peopl to whom the demon they worship has given. 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 26r 

tens of millions wrung from starving laborers. But God 
makes the greed of men to praise Him and the sistem 
will ^et be changed. 

And when I think of those starving, shoeless men fight- 
ing to the deth for a principl, in the depths of winter at 
Valley Forge, and then think of the toadying to welth on 
the part of those who to-day sit secure thru their great 
sacrifice, their patient endurance, I wonder what some 
of our Mayflower gentlmen mean. But they lisnd to hrnx 
and wisht they were in his shoes. Doing great good ! A 
man clearly blest by the demon ! What a conception of 
God men and women hav ! And we speak of sending mis- 
sionaries to the Sandwich Islands! Keep the good men at 
home for a week or two for they ar sadly needed. w These 
plutocrats," said Bishop Potter some years ago, " ar thecr 
enemies of religion as they ar of the state." 

O, Kerosene Johnnie, Kerosene Johnnie, it's all so funny- 
and so tragic too, for littl as you thot it, I am afraid that 
you stood upon that platform as the mouthpiece of Satan 
who is the enemy of God. 

Off with his crown ! So nmch for Buckingham Rocke- 
feller, alias Kerosene Johnnie. 

It may pleas you to lern that your sincere cousin^. 
Sancho Quixote, who does not believ in lucky numbers. 
days and dates, has finisht this book of his on a Thursday 
in deference to your prejudices. You were doubtless 
afraid that he might run it over to Friday and cast a spell 
over you, but he is merciful, and knows you too well to> 
attempt it. 

" I dare say," writes William Makepeace Thackeray in 
one of his essays, "I dare say the reader has remarkt. 
that the upright and independent vowel which stands in 
the vowel list between E and O has formed the subject of 
the main part of these essays." 

Sancho Quixote dares say that his readers hav remarkt 
the same littl failing, but what was to be done ? He has 



262 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

been among folks who speak strait to the point and at 
somewhat indelicate, and he may hav fallen into bad cus- 
toms. But, after all, how would " the present writer ' 
style hav done ? or "the one who is riting these pages?" 
It would not hav sounded like your cousin Sancho at all. 
Let it go as it is and be glad that we hav got to the end 
of it together, for Sancho's conscience trotibld him until 
it was ritn. The style is not just what it might be, but 
he has of en been glad to get thru it in any fashion, as he 
sometimes wonderd if he had any business going over 
the old ground insted of keeping his mind on something 
els, so let go and some day — ! 

And now your cousin Sancho Quixote says au revoir to 
you in a cheerful kind of a way. He has been spreding 
ideas and that is the bxisiness you ar engaged in. The 
favorit copy-book maxim he likes is, il Envy no man, "nor 
woman either, for that matter, and he manages to liv up 
to it fairly well. 

They sometimes askt him in the stormy days, in a jeer- 
ing kind of away, in order that he might contrast his 
misery with the happiness of others, whether, if the thing 
were possibl, he would not change places with so and so, 
but he always declined to entertain the idea. ' ' Which 
highest mortal, in this inane Existence, had I not found 
a Shadow hunter, or Shadow hunted, and when I lookt 
thru his brave garnitures miserabl enuf ? Thy wishes hav 
all been snift aside, thot I, but what had they even been 
all granted ? Did not the boy Alexander weep becaus 
he had not two planets to conquer or a hole solar system, 
or after that a hole univers ?" 

Each one of us, millionaire or pauper, has to fight his 
own batl, and Sancho's lines hav, take it all thru, been 
cast in fairly plesant places. His chief worry comes from 
seeing thousands and tens of thousands of human beings 
used for manure to foster the growth of the rich and 
selfish, and he believs that trubl is bound to come of it. 



THE TIME SPIRIT AND AU REVOIR. 263 

America is not, as some seem to imagin, exempt from 
universal law, and God is greater than the plutocrats. He 
is no respecter of persons. Free silver ten times over 
will not help the class I speak of, and there will be savage 
injustice even altho you had prohibition ten times over, 
as well, unless you make some other changes in your 
laws. 

Here is what a man rote lately of the poor of London 
and it applies just as well to the poor of America, — 

" Almighty God, whose justice, like a sun, 

Shall coruscate along the floors of heven ; 
Raising what's low, perfecting what's undone, 

Breaking the proud, and making odd things even. 
The poor of Jesus Christ along the street 

In your rain sodden, in your snows unshod, 
They hav no herth, nor roof, nor daily meat, 

Nor even the bred of man, Almighty God. 

*« The poor of Jesus Christ, whom no man hears, 
Hav calld upon your vengence much too long. 

Wipe out not tears, but blood ; our eyes bleed tears ; 
Come, smite our damned soflstries eo strong, 
That thy rude hammer battering this rude rong, 

Ring down the abyss of twice ten thousand years." 

— HlLAIRB BELLOC. 

God is luv, but don't forget that He luvs those who hav 
been crusht down thru the accursed system some of His 
prominent Christians defend as they defended black slav- 
ery. Don't forget the next time you take up your daily 
newspapers and read the usual ' 'smart" jokes over "Weary 
Waggls, " "Dusty Rhodes," and the others, that it is per- 
haps possibl to carry things too far. You say that they 
deserv it, and so on, but you lie and in your inmost hart 
you know it. Perhaps we ar going just the least bit too 
far in our treatment of the submerged tenth. They re- 
fused to take warning in France and we know what came 
of it. The evil spirits ar around us here as well as they 
were around the French peopl there. God is luv, but 



264 OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS. 

just remember that He is justice too. Don't slop over 
in your discourses about luv. Let us hear a few on jus- 
tice for a change. Justice in social laws, I mean, where- 
by a man will come to understand the "luv" you 
preach. 

A book of this kind is sometimes necessary, but justice 
being attended to, preach luv and not dred. Only as my 
mind became fixt on the idea of a God of luv who would 
take care of me for the best, no matter w T hat hapend > 
did I become strong enuf to endure, and I see to-day, 
that only as we teach luv will we be successful. Angels 
teach luv; demons teach dred, "and they magnify His 
strictness with a zeal He will not own. " 

And now let me conclude with some words from Ed- 
ward Everett Hale. They stiffend my backbone when it 
needed some strength and as ideas rule the world they 
may help you. -"Not a Christian?" "I'm sorry for it," 
quoth my uncle Toby Quixote. But luv is the cardinal 
doctrin of Christianity and thru that doctrin alone we 
shall conquer. But, in case you hav alredy forgotten it, 
the man who denies justice does not know what luv 
means. Luv is God. Justice is only one of His attri- 
butes, and yet many Christians to-day bitterly oppose 
justice while they whine about luv. But here is the con- 
cluding paragraf : 

"You ar a prince of the blood. You ar a son, beloved, 
of the Almighty Power who rules this world and carries 
it on to-day. You can rule body and mind with an abso- 
lute control if you choose. If you wish and choose you 
will be in absolute confidence with your Father and in 
the closest relations with Him. Tell Him everything 
and take advice in all difficulties. Thank Him in all 
.successes and go back to Him in all failures. You 
will use His Almighty Power then, for the sway of 
mind and body. You will be a fellow workman with 
Him." 



TO THE REEDER. • 265 



TO THE REEDER: 

If you like the speling in this book adopt it yourself 
without waiting for either the mosbaks or the milenium ; 
if you think the book is wurth reeding tell your naibor 
about it, as I want to sell 50,000 copies in the United 
States alone, not to mention Europe. "Pour vaincre les 
editeurs, pour les atterer, que faut-il? De l'audace, encore 
de l'audace et toujours de l'audace!" 



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